


Extensions

by tasteofthebitchpudding



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, F/M, Phone Sex, Sexual Content, Smut, Suspense, and probably too much plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2019-10-11 05:35:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 42,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17440934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tasteofthebitchpudding/pseuds/tasteofthebitchpudding
Summary: Modern/1990's AU, Christine Daaé is a down-at-luck university student in desperate need of cash. When fate lands her a job as a phone sex operator, she makes an unlikely connection with a seductive-voiced peer in the trade. Will she and this mystery man be able to make the leap from purchased intimacy to real life, or will theirs be just another missed connection? Smut!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This smutty little AU is a gift for Batherik, who sent the "E/C phone sex AU" prompt on Tumblr, proving that if you send a prompt, apparently I can't say no. They are the creator of one of my favorite POTO comics, and have been feeling poorly...Batherik, I hope this cheers you up! I'm so mad at you for this!
> 
> This will be a three-shot fic, I swear to God.

"Hi baby," she purred in her most seductive kitten voice. "Do you wanna play with m-"

Christine hadn't even managed to finish her opening when a telltale hitching wheeze interrupted her. She listened for several gasping heartbeats before her eyes closed in disgusted disappointment once more. The man on the other end of the line, his orgasm complete, disconnected the call.

It had been the third call that evening, all of them ending the same way. She would answer her line to the sound of frantic masturbation on the other end, with the caller coming before she could even make it to the three minute mark.

This was not the way life was supposed to be, Christine thought miserably, pushing away her cereal bowl and dropping her head to her arm. Her father was  _not_  supposed to die, she was  _not_  supposed to have been left in a mountain of debt, music school was  _not_  supposed to cost what may as well have been a billion dollars, and she was most definitely  _not_  supposed to be doing phone sex work just to pay her meager rent.

Life, it seemed, had other ideas.

Her father's day job as an archivist had been sufficient enough to keep them fed and the rent paid, but did little to secure anything for the future. When he had lost his battle with the cancer he'd gotten from the building material in the old library, Christine found herself drowning in a tide of grief and hospital bills. The class action lawsuit against the city that she'd joined would be paying out eventually, but until then, she needed to keep the bill collectors at bay and food on her table.

 _It's just for a little while_ , she reminded herself.  _The lawsuit money will be coming in soon, you can go back to school next semester. This will just be a funny story to tell someday._

The phone rang again, and she straightened up.  _Showtime._

"Hi baby,"

"Chris, what the fuck? How have you barely hit four minutes in three calls?"

Meg's voice snapped down the line, and she dropped her head back to her arm.

"For God's sake, don't you think I know that? What am I supposed to do?! These guys are already beating it, Meg. As soon as I answer, they jizz themselves and they're done! They don't care about talking, they just want someone to hear them coming."

The other girl sighed heavily into the phone, and Christine pressed her eyes into her arm in misery.

"Christine, you said you really needed this job."

Meg was a pretty slip of a girl whom she'd sat next to during orientation for the Fine Arts school. They'd become fast friends, giggling away at speaker after speaker, until they were forced to go their separate ways-Christine to the school of music, Meg to the school of dance. Over the course of their easy friendship, Christine had learned Meg didn't need to worry about the tuition in the same way she did, as her mother ran a "lucrative business".

When she had been dropped from the Spring roster due to non-payment, Meg had hesitantly suggested that she should come work for said business.

"You can make good money, Christine. Find a day job and do this on the evenings and weekends. By the time school starts up again in the fall, you'll be flush."

Little did she know, as she eagerly nodded yes, hugging her friend in gratitude, that the job was as a phone sex worker, and the good money could only be made if the caller was kept on the phone for fifteen minute blocks. So far, one month into her inglorious new career, she could barely afford name brand toilet paper with her earnings.

"I do, Meggie, I do," she moaned. "I just...I don't know what I'm doing."

She heard the pathetic waver in her voice, and obviously so did Meg. Christine had found out after she'd started working that her friend worked in her mother's office during school breaks, running the lines, tallying the totals for each login. The fun-loving dancer she knew at school was a miniature version of her formidable mother at  _the_   _office_ , as Christine quickly learned. It was several long moments before Meg spoke again.

"Okay, this is what we're going to do...get a pen and take down this number. This is the switchboard line. I'm going to give you the extension for our three top money makers, if you call them from the switchboard, you don't incur a charge. Maybe one of them can give you some tips, okay?"

The first woman Christine called that evening, after much waffling and procrastination, pacing back and forth across her threadbare rug before dialing, scolded her for keeping the line tied up.

"I-I'm sorry, I was told you might be able to give me some pointers," she blurted desperately as the woman ranted.

"Sweetie, you want a pointer? Sell them the fantasy they're looking for. This is a business, the product changes from customer to customer. Above all, don't clog my fucking line ever again."

The woman disconnected as she sputtered her apology, heat flaming her face.

Sell them a fantasy?  _What if their fantasy is to ejaculate as soon as someone answers the phone?_  she thought wryly, calling the next extension before she lost her nerve.

Fortunately the next woman was a bit more patient. After seeming confused as to why Christine was calling, she soon settled into the role of battle-weary agony aunt, and chatted for nearly ten minutes.

"Honey, don't believe anyone who tells you you're gonna get rich overnight, that's your first mistake. It takes time to be successful, and this business is like any other. You gotta learn the ropes and find your in. Once you do that, you'll start getting regulars, that's when you wrack up the time. Once these guys start calling you, you specifically, they like to talk. They're still just looking to jack off, but they want to jack off with  _you_  now."

Christine hung up feeling unsettled, not sure if any of that actually helped, or if it just made her feel dirty. Rising from her table, she decided to wash away the metaphorical grime of the last few hours and take a bath. Taking the cordless with her, she thought she'd give the last top earner a call from the tub.

Thirty minutes later, she wound her curls up to the top of her head, smoothing away the honey-gold wisps, and slipped into the steaming bubbles. Waiting until the tension had slipped from her shoulders, she propped one elbow on the edge of the tub and dialed, preparing herself for a slinky, sex-pot voice to answer.

Closing her eyes as the phone began to ring, she breathed deeply, prepared to be yelled at again. The phone rang once...twice...three times?! before a smooth "Hello _?"_  came over the line.

Her mouth dropped open. She must have dialed wrong, she must have transposed something in the main switchboard line, for there was no way that  _this_  could be one of the business' top earners.

For starters, it was a man.

He wasn't prompt in picking up the phone, he answered like it was his own personal line, and his voice…

_His voice!_

Christine had never heard such a voice, at least not outside of radio and the movies. Rich and deep and resonant, it sent a shiver up her spine. She wanted badly to hear it again.

_Shit_

At least thirty seconds had elapsed since the man picked up the line. Reflecting that it was comical how she was now able to accurately break time down into minutes and seconds, she realized immediately that her first clue that she'd indeed dialed the right number should have been the fact that the man hadn't said anything further and was letting the dead air accumulate

_What a sneak!_

"H-hi," she stammered out, feeling her cheeks flush.

"How are you tonight, beautiful?"

Christine slipped a bit deeper into her bathwater, as if his sonorous, velvet voice were pushing her, causing a tingle to excite between her thighs. "Fine," she squeaked. When her earlobes touched the steaming water, she started.  _How the hell is he doing this, is he a magician_?!

"Fine, I'm fine!" she blurted, sitting up hurriedly. "I'm um, I'm calling from the switchboard? They gave me your extension for, um, pointers and...I-I'm new?"

Christine closed her eyes in mortification. She sounded like a babbling idiot, she knew.  _Just dunk yourself until the bubbles stop._  Before she could clarify her reason for calling, he'd begun to speak again.

"Oh...well, that's fine, I suppose. How are you tonight, Miss…?"

"Angel," Christine breathed. No one at the agency went by their actual name, she had learned. The only record of a Christine Daaé at the agency was on a tax ID form that had been sent to an off-site payroll company

"Angel," he repeated softly. "How long have you been doing this?"

"Just a month."

"And how have things been going so far?"

"Oh, well...they've been, um…"

"That good, hmm?" His deep chuckle was like melted chocolate in her ear, and Christine thought that maybe she understood why he did so well after all. There was a sensuousness to his tone that made her body respond to him in a way she'd never before experienced.

"Let me guess, can't keep them on the line?"

"Exactly!" she sighed, leaning forward to turn the hot tap back on. "I can barely get out an opening line and they're already, um...finishing." The last was said with another blush as the sexy-voiced stranger on the phone laughed again.

"Stop giving them a line," he suggested. "Don't answer the phone giving them what they want, you need to shake them up a bit."

A rebuttal was on the tip of her tongue, but before she could voice an argument, Christine paused. He hadn't answered the phone with anything other than  _Hello_ , and it had, in fact, shaken her up.

"You're still going to get the guys who are already...overexcited, we'll say," he continued sardonically. "I'm sorry that's been the majority of your experiences thus far. They won't all be like that."

"Someone told me I need to sell them a fantasy," she murmured. "I'm not sure I'd know how to do that even if I did manage to get someone on the line for more than a minute." She felt her cheeks heat. It was humiliating admitting she couldn't even fathom how to give horny, desperate strangers what they were looking for, but it was the truth.

"Mhm, that's not bad advice. It's the fantasy, yes, but it's also the intimacy. It's not always just about the sex, people call for different reasons, but one way or another, they're all looking to make a connection."

"You have an amazing voice," she blurted, unable to keep the thought contained to herself for another minute. She was once more tempted to hold herself under the bathwater as he chuckled again.  _Stupid, so freaking stupid._

"Thank you, Angel." Christine felt a swooping sensation low in her stomach as he continued. "But I could say the same to you, your voice is quite beautiful. Very polished...do you act or sing?"

"Sing." She leaned forward to turn off the hot tap, settling back in the water once more. She knew she probably shouldn't tell this stranger anything about herself, but she simply couldn't help it. His voice was hypnotic, and she suspected any man or woman would be hard pressed to not be trapped in its thrall if he so wished it. "I-I'm classically trained."

"Beautiful," he murmured again, and Christine shivered, despite the near-scalding water. "Well, once you have them on the line, you just...talk. Let them lead you to what the fantasy needs to be. So let's just talk. How are you doing tonight, Angel?"

Christine laughed, feeling her tension lessen. She began to talk to to the man on the phone, and to her surprise, it wasn't hard at all.

He asked her about her musical training, how long she'd studied, and what types of music she preferred. When she revealed that she most loved classical performance, she could hear his smile through the connection. They talked about their favorite operas, she told him about roles she had done. To her slight disappointment, he revealed little about himself, other than the unsurprising fact that he'd "had some experience in voice work."

His voice had never lost any of its smoothness, as she'd expected, any of its rich resonance as they'd talked; she realized this was not a stage voice he used, but his actual everyday speaking voice. Christine didn't know why this smooth-voiced stranger was so easy to talk to, but she could easily understand why people paid money to listen to him. Before she knew it, most of the evening had gone by.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry," she murmured, leaning forward to drain some of the water again. "I've tied up your line the whole night, I'm...I'm really sorry."

"I don't know why, I've enjoyed myself."

"I did too," she laughed, surprised that she meant it. She'd emptied and drained half of the tub water several times as they'd talked, and leaned to turn the hot water on once more.

"Is that water I keep hearing?" he asked suddenly. "Are you an actual mermaid, Angel? A seductive siren, luring sailors to their doom with that beautiful voice?"

Christine felt her breath catch and her cheeks flame. How embarrassing to admit she'd been talking to him in the tub this whole time! "Not quite," she laughed awkwardly. "I'm taking a bath."

There was a pregnant pause on the other end of the phone, and she hurriedly turned the water off.  _This is so humiliating…_

"It occurs to me that we didn't practice much fantasy selling, Angel," the man purred, and Christine immediately stilled, suddenly breathless.

There was something different in his tone, a note of raw sexuality that had been absent from their previous conversation. Christine knew she'd be lying to herself if she pretended his voice wasn't incredibly arousing; if she pretended that she hadn't been pulsing her thighs together for the last hour just listening to him talk about music.

 _Now_  though...

"No, I suppose we didn't," she squeaked in a voice that far less seductive than she'd been hoping, even as desire rippled through her.

"Well, you have your caller on the line. He's already enthralled, now you need to sell the fantasy. A bath...perfect. Set the scene for me, Angel...give me the fantasy."

Christine felt her mind go completely blank. She didn't know her name, where she was, what she was doing. She  _wanted_ , but had no idea of the what or the how.  _I have no idea what I'm doing_.

A hint of a chuckle, dark and curling came over the line, jolting her back to reality. "What's your tub like, sweetheart?" he asked gently, his voice wrapping around her like velvet and she instantly felt more secure. "I want to picture you in it."

"M-my tub…?"

"Remember," he whispered, "it's a fantasy. You-"

"It's a marble soaking tub," Christine cut him off. She had her eyes closed, her head tipped back as she formed the vision. When they reopened, she was in the bathroom of her dreams, the place she always dreamed she might own someday.

"Pink and white marble. The lights are off, but I have candles lit. I just slipped off my panties and climbed into the water."

Christine Daaé would never be able to say such a thing to a stranger, but  _Angel_  had no such inhibitions.

"Mmm, very nice. Do you have your hair pulled up?"

Christine took a steadying breath. Thinking about what the very first top earner had told her before the woman had slammed the phone down, Christine considered his words, both in what he'd said previously, and the question he'd just asked her.

 _The product changes from customer to customer...Let them lead you to what the fantasy needs to be_.

Long hair was what he wanted then. "Yes," she answered decisively. "My hair is very long, but I have it all wound up so it doesn't get wet."

"Beautiful," he whispered again. "Is it very cold in your bathroom?"

The air in  _her_  bathroom was warm and damp from repeatedly replenishing the hot water in the tub, but he certainly didn't need to know that. Angel's bathroom was cool, the steaming water a comforting oasis.

"It is," Angel's voice simpered out. "My nipples are so tight and hard from the cold...do you want to feel how hard they are before I slip under the hot water?"

That deep chuckle came over the line again, and Christine felt the tiny hairs on the back of her neck raise.

"We're learning so quickly, my dear."

Christine spent the next several minutes narrating how the bathwater felt as it sluiced against her skin, her body's reactions to the warmth and how languid it made her feel. She described the weight of her breasts, the tightness of her nipples, and the corresponding pulse she felt between her legs as she pinched them.

She was completely aroused, she realized with a start.  _That's not what was supposed to be happening_.  _She_  was the girl on the phone,  _she_  was meant to create the fantasy for her caller.. _.it's because of him_. It was because of the man on the phone's sexy voice she told herself firmly.  _He's also really nice though_ …

"Do you want me to touch you, Angel?"

His voice purred in her ear, and Christine once again felt the ability to breathe leave her.

_Yes. God, yes._

"I-I thought I was creating a fantasy for you," she murmured, brow furrowing. "You're my caller."

"You're doing a wonderful job, sweetheart, don't you worry about that. But, it seems that technically,  _you_  called  _me_."

Christine flushed. He was right, she supposed...but she had called him for help, had kept his line tied up all evening, preventing him from making money with other callers. The least she could do was get him off, she thought.

"Let me take care of you, Angel."

It was his voice that made up her mind; that rolling, seductive press of velvet fog against her.

When he told her to lie back and close her eyes, she obeyed. When he described his hands sliding down her body, she shivered from the weight of his touch. She could feel his warm breath on her neck as his voice tickled at her ear, felt the glide of his broad palms over her hips, seeking lower. When he slipped a finger into her hot folds, her hips bucked, eager for his touch. Gentle circles around that pulsing little pearl of pleasure, growing more focused and gaining speed as she inched closer to release. When he slipped a finger inside of her she gasped; when he added a second, she ground herself into his hand, wanting more.

The force of her orgasm made her cry out on a breathy wheeze, water lapping around and over her, and suddenly she was back in her bathtub, her fingers coated in her own slippery release.

"Beautiful," he murmured once more, and Christine felt herself redden.

 _You just had phone sex with a stranger, you're no better than the guys who call you, ready to pop as soon as you answer._ That wasn't true, she argued with herself. She'd been talking to thins man all evening, and their conversation had been nice. It was almost like a date. The fact that she'd had a better orgasm with him on the phone than she'd had with her few flesh and blood partners over the past few years was a completely separate issue, she told herself firmly. One that they could analyze  _later_.

"What would you like me to...how can I," Christine trailed off, unsure of how to voice her desire to make him experience the same euphoric release from her voice, as she'd done with his.

"That's not necessary, my dear-"

"Yes, it is," she insisted, sitting up in the water. "You're my caller too." Swallowing hard, she thought of all she'd learned that evening. "Just...just lie back. Let me take care of you," she crooned as suggestively as she could. "I'm going to suck on your big, hard-"

"No," he interrupted her. His voice was rougher, a bit more forceful than she'd yet heard him, and her own voice cut off abruptly. "Not-not like that. "I don't-can't...just, sing for me. Will you do that, Angel? Sing something for me."

Christine was breathing hard, but somehow she managed to remember her training. He couldn't get off to the dirty talk, not the way the other callers would.  _They're not all just going to want a song, better enjoy this while it lasts_.

 _C'est_   _l'extase_  seemed appropriately desirous, she thought, as she let the sensuous Debussy melody drape over the man on the phone.

She'd been listening to strangers masturbate for a month, had listened to the strained, gasping sounds of their release too many times to count.  _This_  man, unlike the rest, she  _wanted_  to listen to, wanted to hear...but the only evidence that anything at all had happened on the other end of the phone line was the slight groan she was able to make out as she reached the aria's pinnacle.

When she had finished the song, the only sound was of the water gently moving against her. Pressing the receiver firmly into her ear, Christine strained to hear him, even his breathing. Clearing her throat lightly, she waited, until finally he spoke.

"This was…" he cleared his throat and then that dark chuckle returned. Christine felt liquefied by the sound. "...a very enjoyable evening, but alas, it's grown quite late, I fear. I'm sure you need to be getting up for work or school in the morning."

"Thank you," she blurted out, Christine once more, awkward and stammering. "T-thank you for the advice, and the conversation, and…" Heat burned to top of her head.  _Thanks for the incredible orgasm._  "...for all of it. I really liked talking with you."

"Not nearly as much as I enjoyed the time with you, my dear, I assure you." His voice was softer now, almost wistful. "Perhaps our extensions will cross again soon. Until then...goodnight, Angel."

Pulling the plug on the tub, she trudged back to the living room to return the cordless phone to its cradle before shuffling to her bedroom. Christine dropped into her bed heavily, feeling drowsy and content for the first time in months. She'd enjoyed talking with the man on the phone immensely, and wondered if they would truly get a chance to talk again.  _He's a phone sex operator for heaven's sake_!

 _So am I_ , she argued sleepily. She wouldn't win the battle with the voice in head, not that night as sleep raced to meet her as she cuddled into her comforter, thinking about when she and if she might ever talk to him again.

_You do have his switchboard extension..._

As her eyes fluttered shut, Christine realized with a pang she'd never even asked what she should call him.


	2. Chapter 2

“Yeah, you like that, don’t you? You little slut.”

Christine turned the page of her magazine and made a choking noise. Every thirty seconds or so she’d gasp for breath and wheeze out some variation of “choke me, daddy! Harder, daddy!”

She’d managed to get halfway through the article she was reading when the man on the other end of the phone’s breathing began to grow heavier. Christine eyed the egg timer she had on the table and frowned. The call was closing in on the fourteen minute mark, but she was counting on reaching at least twenty.

“I don’t think you’ve taught me a lesson,” she cut in. “I think I still feel like a dirty little whore. I need a man who can punish me...aren’t you man enough to teach me a lesson, daddy?”

The man growled and instantly began his verbal onslaught once more. Christine pursed her lips with a grim smile, confident she’d staved off his orgasm for another few minutes. She’d learned more than a few tricks of the trade over the course of the last three months, and while she was no top earner, Christine was at the very least holding her own.

The second woman she’d talked to the night she’d called seeking help had the right of it: she was by no means rich, but for the first time in the past year and a half, she hadn’t been struggling to pay her bills. She'd been able to catch up on her utilities, had more than ramen and yogurt in her kitchen. 

On a rare girl's day with Meg, she'd bought herself an adorable dress--french blue with a box-pleated, A-line skirt and bell sleeves. It was the first time she'd been able to treat herself since father died, and she'd hung the dress carefully on the back of her door when she'd come home that day. The woman had been right--the regulars liked to to stay on the line. 

Christine had amassed a handful of regulars at that point, men that would call her a few times a week; invisible benefactors who kept her lights on and gave her the ability to start making small payments on some of the medical bills her father had accumulated, for the meager recompense of helping them orgasm. 

Her maestro had smirked that it was because her angel’s voice alone could make a man achieve ecstasy, and she had sassed back that he was the only one who seemed to manage  _ that _ particular feat.

There was Billy, a nervous-sounding man she estimated to be in his mid-forties who liked for her to pretend to be a stranger he was masturbating in front of. She would act out watching him on the subway, at the park, at the movie theater...Christine felt as though she were doing a public service, for if Billy was keeping his exhibition fantasies confined to the phone with her, young mothers at the playground and women on the subway trying to get home in the evening would be safe, at least from him.

There was the man who wanted her to pretend to be his boss, the man who wanted her to pee on him, the man who could only ejaculate if she scolded him like he was a naughty school boy. There was Bud, who called every Wednesday and Friday, the man she was currently egging on to reach at least twenty minutes. She wasn’t sure who the poor woman was that he fantasised about verbally punishing, but if acting out violent fellatio meant she could maybe get her nails done next month, Christine would choke and gag over the phone all night. 

And then there was Friday Night Guy. He never gave a name, never told her anything about himself at all, only wanted to verbally berate her. He didn’t care what name Christine gave him, didn’t care about building any fantasy or roleplay...Friday Night Guy got off on abusing  _ her _ , not any of her alter egos.

_ You’re a disgusting slut, having sex on the phone for money. Would you let me fuck you for real if I paid enough, you little whore?  _

The first time he’d called, she’d spent the hour after he’d hung up crying on the floor of her shower, until the scalding hot water that had rained down on her chilled. After the third and fourth calls she’d been upset, but knowing what to expect helped, and she found she was able to shake it off. 

Now when Friday Night Guy called, Christine bit back, insulting him for every barb he threw at her. It made him furious, which still frightened her, but she’d discovered that his anger prevented him from finishing quickly, keeping him on the line longer. 

The increased financial solvency she now enjoyed had certainly come at a cost. 

She had learned that if she stayed logged into the service during the day she’d wrack up more calls, but the men who called in the daytime hours were looking to pop immediately. She didn’t want to go back to the dreary, unprofitable monotony of listening to countless orgasms for little pay, so taking Meg's advice, Christine managed to secure a hostessing job at a little bistro within walking distance of her apartment.

Four days a week, she’d don a fitted black apron over a white button down and black skirt, and escort business men with expense accounts and fussy older ladies to their tables for the early lunch crowd. She'd come home by late afternoon, would hang up her blouse and skirt, make herself a snack after changing her clothes, and log into the service to wait for her first call.

It was there at the bistro that she’d been chatted up by a smiling young man, one of the expense account suits. He always made a point of lingering near her little hostess counter, and had once given his number to his table’s server to pass to Christine. 

She’d laughed and crinkled the slip of paper before throwing in the trash. She spent enough time on the phone, and wasn’t looking for a relationship in which she was expected to do the hard work. The smiling young man wasn't deterred, however. The following week he was back, all shiny blonde hair and blinding white teeth, lingering at the hostess stand, waiting to talk.

She’d been out with him several times since then; had let him take her to the kinds of places she’d never been able to afford--dinners at restaurants with table-side sommelier service and salsa dancing at a chichi club. On their third date, she’d let him take her back to his apartment, had let him unzip her new blue dress, had let him cover her body with his own.

Christine made all the right noises, had gasped and moaned and urged him on, unconsciously counting the minutes. When he’d shuddered above her, she stared unseeing at the ceiling, wondering if it was her alter ego's sex kitten voice that she’d used, or her own. 

Raoul was a nice guy, was exactly the sort of  _ good catch _ she was always told she should try to snag, but it mattered little now.

She was damaged goods.

Christine didn’t need to wonder what the gregarious young man would think if he knew that her evenings and weekends were spent helping strangers achieve orgasms over the phone for money. He’d be horrified to know the same little gasps and moans he’d heard came at a charge, that she could pretend to be his sister or teacher with ease. The fantasies of the men on the phone had desensitized her to what she’d previously considered deviant and bizarre; Brandi and Vanessa and whoever else she might have been for the night didn't mind the names the men called her and wished to be called in return.

She'd never be able to go with Raoul to his sister's Hamptons wedding, an event he’d made a point of mentioning several times, and talk about what she did. She'd have to lie. Lie to the fancy strangers she’d meet, and lie to him. 

Somehow, in her imaginings of having a funny story to tell one day, she'd forgotten that the story was too salacious for polite company, too dark and vulgar and explicit, and that she was the unfortunate main character.

Christine hadn’t counted on actual intimacy being tainted for her, now that she was paid to provide the illusion of it. 

She’d slipped soundlessly out of his bed that night; had dressed in the dark and tiptoed down the hall of the big trust fund-paid apartment on the upper west side. She felt as though she were still on the clock, and desperately wanted to get back to her own world, where she could be Christine once more. It was a short walk to the subway that took her back to her dingier neighborhood, teetering in her chunky Mary Janes, an even shorter walk back to her building, and then she was home, far away from that life that wasn’t hers. 

Christine hung the dress on the back of her door, thinking she could probably febreeze away the smokey club smell without needing to have it cleaned. Lingerie in the hamper, a white cotton tank top pulled over her head before slipping between her cool white sheets, her cordless phone in hand.

She’d glanced at the digital clock on her bedside table as she dialed; it was nearly three o’clock in the morning, but she knew he’d answer. He always did.

Three rings, as usual. On the fourth, she’d been prepared to concede defeat, when the line abruptly picked up. His voice was rough upon answering, tinged with sleep and she smiled softly.

“Did I wake you?”

“No, I was working. What are you up to tonight, sweetheart? It’s late.” 

She’d hummed in disapproval, ignoring his question, the smile still on her face. “That means you fell asleep at your piano again. That’s not good for you, you need to go to bed once in a while.”

His dark chuckle still turned her inside out at that point, no matter how many times she’d heard it, and she’d squirmed beneath her sheets.

“Fine, I’m going to lie down on the couch. Is that good enough?”

She rolled onto her side, listening to him flop down onto his sofa, wherever he was. “It’s a start, I suppose.”

“What’s wrong?” 

His voice had been so soft, barely a whisper of velvet at her ear, and Christine had once more felt pressed back by its resonance. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine it was the delicious weight of his body easing her deeper into her mattress, instead of just a magic trick of his larynx. 

“Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

“Mhm. It’s the middle of the night, you’re wide awake, and you just wanted to hear my voice...are you sure that’s  _ all _ you wanted?”

She’d hummed, drawing her knees up and pressing her thighs together. 

“I have no idea what you’re implying, sir. I would never presume to know what  _ you _ wanted,” she said as primly as she was able. “Maybe I just wanted to say goodnight. You’re the one answering the phone at three in the morning after all.”

He laughed again and her toes curled. “Well, rest assured, you don't have to presume. I always have an appetite for you.”

Christine preened, snuggling deeper into her comforter. Somewhere along the line, she’d stopped feeling like he was just feeding her lines, the same ones he fed to the paying customers. 

Some things, she’d learned, were just for her.

“I had a date tonight,” she found herself whispering. 

“Oh? How did that go? Pretty well I’d guess, if you’re just getting home…”

Christine twisted in disappointment at his nonchalance. She wasn’t sure what she wanted from this man, why she was telling him. He’d already told her they couldn’t meet, that it  _ wasn’t possible _ . Jealousy? Possessiveness? Traits that would normally send her running, but for some reason it was all she wanted to hear from her maestro.

“Good for him, I guess. He’s really nice, but I don’t think I’m that interested. Not in him, at least.”

The pause on the other end of the line was weighted, and Christine had held her breath, hoping against hope for...something.

“Well, maybe that’s for the best,” he’d said in a quiet voice that seemed to shift in the bed next to her. Christine turned her hip, instinctively making room for him.“You need to be focusing on your auditions right now. I’d like to hear the Puccini tomorrow, I think. For now I think you should get to bed.”

“Okay,” she’d murmured, settling into her pillow. A curious mix of emotions played within her--disappointment, relief, anticipation for her next lesson with him, but above all a longing that twisted her insides until she could scarcely breathe.

“Goodnight, Maestro.”

“Sweet dreams, sweetheart.”

.

.

“Are you still in school or do you--”

“I’m taking a semester off,” she'd interrupted. “I-I wasn’t able to afford tuition, that’s why I’m doing this.” She spoke in a hurry, apologetically, as though she might hurt his feelings by disparaging their shared profession.

“Ah,” he said softly. “I’d suspected it was something like that. Are you hoping to return to school eventually? It would be a shame to let your training lapse, you have such a beautiful raw instrument.”

“Y-yes,” she squeaked out in Christine’s nervous stammer. “Next semester, hopefully. The money I make doing this and the lawsu--”

She’d cut off abruptly, wondering how wise it was to reveal anything about herself to this stranger.  _ You don't know anything about him, idiot! Just because he has a sexy voice you’re ready to give him directions to your apartment? He could be a sexy-voiced serial killer! _

“A-a lawsuit. Class action, against the city,” she continued in a halting voice. 

She trusted the man on the phone, she argued with herself. It was the second time they’d talked, and to her acute relief, he’d sounded extremely happy when she’d shyly said hello after he’d picked up the line.

“I’m sorry, I don't mean to bother you,” she’d fretted after he’d answered. Gripping her cordless handset tightly, she’d tucked her legs up beneath her on her small blue-striped sofa. “I hate tying up your line--”

“No, it’s fine,” he’d assured her quickly. “I don’t actually do much during the evenings. The women who call...well, husbands and kids are home after 4pm. It’s a daytime indulgence.”

Her face flamed at his words, and she’d envisioned bored housewives calling him from their upper east side bedrooms, their Magic Wands providing a jarring, discordant counterpoint to the deep, dulcet sound of his honeyed voice.

“Once the lawsuit settles, the money from that and whatever I make over the summer doing this...I’m hoping to go back in the fall. I just hope my voice isn’t too rusty by then,” she’d laughed.

It wasn't until their next conversation that he’d suggested working with her on her voice, after asking if she was currently studying with anyone to keep up her technique, something she certainly couldn't afford.

“I could help you,” he’d murmured, and Christine thought she’d felt her lungs physically turn inside out with the force of the breath she’d sucked in. 

He’d already told her he was also a musician, had played a rolling melody like flowing water on a piano as he spoke, as if to prove his point. “I have experience with voice work. I’ve done some dubbing for foreign work, and narration for smaller projects, I compose...I don’t sing professionally, but I  _ am _ a musician.”

She’d smiled at the slight note of defensive pride in his tone. “I’d need to be deaf not to believe that,” she’d laughed, and his dark chuckle had joined her; a swirl of dark, cloying smoke playing around her shimmering, silver tone like a caress

“Then I suppose I’ll have to call you Maestro,” she’d murmured, feeling a stab of desire just from saying it aloud. It seemed an inherently sexual title, at least for him. 

When she’d asked him what she should call him, that second time they'd spoken, he’d returned unhelpfully with “you can call me whatever you’d like, Angel.”

After that first night, when she’d talked to him in her bathtub, she’d ceased being Angel for anyone but him. And now here he was, offering to help her keep her voice in shape, free of charge...Christine couldn’t help but feel as though he’d been dropped in her life’s path for a reason, that  _ he _ was the angel.

His deep, dark laugh over the line had drawn her shoulders up as she felt it lick down her spine. “Mmmm, I think I could  _ very _ used to hearing you say that, sweetheart. Tell me about what you’re going to wear to your first big performance.”

“That depends,” she trilled, feeling a throb of heat bloom through her. “Are you there helping me get dressed, or are we back in my dressing room after the show?”

“Oh, after the show, definitely. We’re in your dressing room, and there’s a giant mirror on one wall, a little low table...hmm, I wonder what you decided to wear under your dress…”

Building a fantasy, it turned out, was an easy undertaking, at least with him.

.

.

 

Back in her kitchen, Bud was grunting out his release furiously, demanding that she choke on it as he wheezed and strained. Twenty three minutes. Christine smiled, closing her magazine.  _ Six minutes better than last week.  _ She rose from the table with a stretch as Bud disconnected the call. She’d already fielded several calls that evening; she needed to make dinner and mentally prepare herself for Friday Night Guy.

She’d mentioned Friday Night Guy to her maestro a few weeks earlier. Christine could barely remember what they’d been talking about, or how they’d gotten on the subject of callers. It was something they simply didn’t discuss, each of them preferring to pretend they knew each other through some other, more innocent connection. 

“You need to report him,” he’d told her firmly, after she’d confessed to the jittery nervousness she felt after the man’s rage-filled calls. “You need to report him to the switchboard so they can block his number. I’m not kidding, Angel. You don’t need to put up with that.”

Christine had balked at his suggestion, and quickly changed the subject. The truth was she’d tried to report Friday Night Guy already. The answer she’d gotten from the switchboard had only made things worse.

“You are not authorized to prematurely terminate any call,” the woman from the office had told her. “Doing so is grounds for automatic dismissal. These calls are our business, Miss.”

She’d tried to tell them that he made her uncomfortable, that it wasn’t the same as the other callers, but the terse-voiced woman on the phone was unsympathetic. “You’re not being paid to judge their kinks,” she’d snapped at Christine. “If you can’t handle it, then maybe this isn’t the right line of work for you. I’ve never had one of our operators actually have the nerve to  _ complain _ about having a regular.”

It was after the call to the switchboard that she’d started snapping back at Friday Night Guy. _If you can’t hang up on him or keep him from calling, he’s going to pay for it_.

Her Maestro had called her the week after she’d told him about the abusive calls, shortly after the man himself had disconnected. Fourteen minutes of calling her a whore, of hate and rage that felt so personally directed, Christine was still trembling when she lifted the receiver on the ringing phone ten minutes later. It had been a mighty struggle to keep the waver from her voice, to answer the phone with the coyness she’d perfected. 

“Hello?”

“Hi, princess.” 

The low warmth of his voice had lapped around her, and Christine had sunk to her chair with a shudder, bobbing on a resonant current of sticky-sweet honey. He’d never called her before, not before that night. She’s always been the one to call him, using the switchboard line Meg had given her and his extension. He’d asked for her own extension shortly after they’d started their lessons, Christine assumed he was contacting her the same way.

He’d kept her on the line for nearly an hour that night, speaking in a soothing, gentle tone until her the stress and fear from her weekly encounter with Friday Night Guy had ebbed away. The genuine affection she felt coming through the line made Christine feel restless in her skin, made her face heat, and she had been sure he could probably hear her heart beating. He’d called again the following week, had once more calmed her frayed nerves with his voice, his dry wit and humor. 

They never played, not on those nights. 

_ That _ particular euphoria was reserved for the days they made music together; for the golden afternoons when the exhilaration of sound and notes and harmony mingled with curled toes and breathless sighs. The words he spoke were so vivid, so weighted in her ear that Christine was able to  _ feel _ his hands upon her, his body moving against hers. His words mingled and danced with the music she would sing for him, culminating in a physical release so satisfying, Christine usually needed to take a nap after they disconnected. 

Singing for him during her lessons was strenuous and instructive, and for the first time since her father had gotten sick, she felt excited about performing again. 

Singing for him  _ after _ her lessons was an altogether different experience, erotic and breath-stealing.

His new habit of calling her on Friday nights was meant to soothe and comfort, and it did just that. Christine thought if her penance for getting to hear his voice on an additional day was dealing with Friday Night Guy, it was a price worth paying. 

Once she’d disconnected from her call with Bud, Christine puttered around her kitchen, heating up the eggplant parmigiana she’d brought home from the bistro the afternoon before. Raoul had been there earlier in the week, had craned his neck from the table he shared with another man from his office to peer at the hostess stand, looking for her.

One of the girls from the waitstaff came to find her once their check was paid and the two men were leaving. “He’s gone, Chrissy,” Hannah had whispered. “Although I can’t imagine why you’re hiding from that one.”

Christine had given the tall girl a thin smile of thanks from the back booth she sat tucked into, rolling silverware in the furthest corner of the small dining room. She had only spoken to Raoul twice since the night she’d left his apartment while he slept. She knew it was probably unfair, the way she was blowing him off, with stilted, non-committal conversation the two times he’d caught her at work and dodged phone calls when she was home.

_ I’m sorry, I can’t see you anymore _ , she’d practiced saying a dozen times in the mirror.  _ It’s not you, it’s me. I’m working on myself right now. I’m not in a good place to be in a relationship. I’m in love with my voice coach. _

All true, she thought ruefully.

She was just placing her rinsed plate in the drying rack when the phone rang. Christine closed her eyes for a heartbeat, steeling herself, pushing Christine away as she pressed the handset’s answer button, silencing the sharp brrrringing.

“Hello?” she answered in her practiced, sultry tone, waiting for the rough, hate-filled voice to hiss at her, greeting her as a whore.

“Did you know that the London Symphony Orchestra was scheduled to be on the Titanic? They changed travel arrangements at the very last minute, apparently. Isn’t that fascinating?”

Christine sagged against the counter in relief, her sigh catching in her throat and nearly escaping as a sob. “I did  _ not _ know that, and it  _ is _ fascinating,” she laughed.

Thirty six minutes of happy, flirtatious chatter followed, and Christine felt her smile stretch even as her heart twinged. They had such an easy rapport, such a natural chemistry...she didn’t have to be anyone but Christine when she had him in her ear. She couldn’t understand why he was so resistant to them meeting.

.

.

“We could just meet for coffee,” she’d begged him once before. “If it’s weird and we don't hit it off, then we know, and nothing needs to change! But it won’t be, I know it won’t be!”

It was a Sunday afternoon, just after her lesson. Sundays were family days for his regulars and it was still too early in the day for hers. 

“Nothing needs to change,” he’d scoffed, and Christine had heard a note of bitterness in his voice that was so raw that it’d made her hunch in pain. Bitter, weary experience, that’s what his voice conveyed as he went on, speaking in short, aggravated bursts, so unlike his normal, smooth, rolling tone. He’d been hurt before, she’d intuited, and he wasn’t willing to take a chance on her. 

They’d never discussed it again after that afternoon, and he seemed content to pretend it had never happened, that she hadn’t been a shuddering, weeping mess once she’d hung up the phone.

“I don’t want to make you cry, Angel,” he’d told her once he heard her little hitching gasps. “I’m sorry sweetheart, but it’s not possible. Believe me, I wish things could be different...but they can’t be.”

She’d made an effort to calm her voice, to hold herself together until after he’d disconnected, but hadn’t been able to bite out one last remark as he said his goodbyes.

“I’ll talk to you on Wednesday, okay? Have a good week, beautiful.”

“You don’t know that I’m beautiful,” she’d snapped. “You don’t know anything about me, and you’re clearly not interested in learning.”

It was a long moment before he spoke, and when he did, the sadness in his voice made her face crumple, and she’d barely been able to hold back the sob that bubbled up her throat.

“You are. I can tell that you are.”

.

.

On the thirty seventh minute, the lights in her apartment flickered, and her phone disconnected. Christine jumped, instantly spooked, but the lights came back on after a moment and a dial tone droned in her ear. When the phone rang just a minute later, she answered with a laugh.

“Why the fuck are you not picking up your line, you little bitch?”

Friday Night Guy’s voice snarled at her, and she froze. She’d not been prepared for him, hadn’t worked herself into the numb, detached mindset that she needed to exist through his calls. At that moment she was still Christine, and Christine was a frightened little mouse, not able to tolerate the violent, brutal things the man on the phone claimed he was going to do to her.

At the six minute mark, her thumb, practically acting on its own accord, hit the button to disconnect the call. 

Silence filled her ear, and the wave of relief she felt as she slumped against her counter was instantly replaced with one of panic.

_ You are not authorized to prematurely terminate any call...Doing so is grounds for automatic dismissal. _

Shit.  _ Shit _ .

Christine felt the tears start brewing at the tips of her toes, felt them shudder up her body in a rippling tide, quivering her spine and tightening her lungs. She couldn’t afford to lose this job, not when she was so close to being able to go back to school.

When the phone, still pressed to cheek, began to ring again, she answered it, heedless of her sobs, of the  epinephrine-fueled tremors that shook her body. She couldn’t lose this job.

“Angel?”

His voice; his deep, plush, comforting voice wrapped around her, and Christine sunk into it, dropping to the floor with a wheeze. 

His voice compelled her, and she was helpless to resist his orders. She picked herself off the floor several minutes later, and drew herself a hot bath, as he instructed. He was able to wheedle out of her what had happened once the tremors no longer wracked her body, and the steaming hot water calmed her.

Somewhere between the floor and the tub she’d keened out her name. He was speaking in a soothing tone, trying to calm her, and had called her Angel once more.

“Christine, my name is Chris-tine,” she’d sobbed out, desperately needing to give him something real, needing him to be real in return.

When’d he’d ordered her to bed, she drained the tub and obeyed.

“I’m going to stay on the line until you’re asleep, sweetheart. No more tears, okay?”

She was floating somewhere between sleep and consciousness, able to hear him, but not able to make her lips form a response. He’d been speaking softly, comfortingly, and apparently was satisfied that she’d drifted to sleep at last.

“My name’s Erik,” he murmured softly, so softly she would wonder in the morning if she’d indeed been dreaming.

 

“Goodnight, Christine.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might just write a little five line ficlet for the first person who spots my laughably obvious easter egg!
> 
> .  
> .

It was her favorite fantasy that they were engaged in, the one where he was there, holding her during her lesson. 

Holding her and touching her. 

She'd get into stance: feet firmly planted, knees springy, shoulders back, and focus on her tone. Christine found that she was able to visualize the notes leaving her mouth by imagining them as an arc of light, and she worked very hard to keep that arc from wavering.

Once she'd sung through her repertoire to his satisfaction, her hard work would be rewarded with his arm slipping around her, his hand finding its way beneath her pleated mini-skirt.

He liked this one too, she'd learned, liked the fantasies that gave him the illusion of authority. Merely the illusion, for he'd made it repeatedly clear she had complete control, could disconnect any time she wanted, could stop him if he said or did something she didn't like...but he enjoyed being in control in the moment, teasing her slowly, insisting she sing through his ministrations.

She’d be unable to stop herself from keening in delight when his fingers would circle that little bud between her thighs with an ever increasing focus, to stop herself from arching in pleasure when he slid a finger through her slippery folds, curving into her. She’d moan without restraint when he added a second, and she knew he liked that too.

All through it, she’d sing. She’d sing music they both loved, would gasp in pleasure, would twist and writhe with his sinuous, dark voice heavy in her ear; his voice that would lower in pitch as he himself grew progressively more aroused, the smoothness becoming rougher around the edges, velvet scorched in fire. Still he made her sing.

“Sing for me, Angel. Let me hear that high note. Let me hear you come for me, princess.”

She always, always did.

Afterwards, his voice would be gentle and tender; a buffeting softness tucked around her as they talked. 

Occasionally he’d tell her about projects he was working on, and Christine would hang on every word, hoarding each golden nugget of information like a jealous dragon, something to hold close and cherish when his voice wasn't there.

“What are you doing with your free day tomorrow, sweetheart?”

They’d had their lesson on a Thursday that week, necessitated by switching a day at the bistro with one of the other hostesses who had an appointment, leaving Christine with her Friday blessedly free, until she would log into the service that evening.

“I’m having lunch with a friend from school,” she murmured, pulling her fluffy pink blanket around her shoulders, leaving room for him to tuck in behind her. “She works in midtown, so we’ll probably just go someplace around her office building.”

“Good. You need to treat yourself more...just be careful. I’ll talk to you tomorrow night, okay?” he said pointedly, reminding her that he’d be there to soothe her after her call with Friday Night Guy. 

Since their incredibly disturbing conversation earlier in the week when he’d frightened her to tears, Erik hadn’t made mention of the terrifying man who called her, or the safety of the job again, but it was there, looming between them, always itching at the back of her mind.

“Have fun with your friend tomorrow, angel.”

“Okay,” she murmured softly, wishing his arms were around her then, wishing she wasn't alone in the yawning emptiness of the apartment. 

Her grief no longer overwhelmed her as often as it had at the beginning of that summer, when the emptiness of the apartment she'd shared with her father had made her home feel more like tomb than a place of refuge. It was only every once in a while, days like this, when she felt small and alone, that it twisted her, and she desperately wished for the safety and security she'd once known.

Erik created the illusion of holding her in his arms almost every night now, before she'd log out of the system, ever since the incident with Friday Night Guy two weeks prior. It helped, but on days like this, his voice was simply not enough.

“Have a good day, Maestro.”  _ I love you.  _

.

.

The office was in an unassuming building in midtown, housing dozens of different corporate tenants. Christine made a cursory glance at the board in the lobby, seeing the names for a law office, a cosmetic dermatologist, and a realtor all listed. Respectable businesses who probably had no idea what kind of neighbor they had, she thought with a smirk, double checking the suite number for the call center.

She’d waffled on what to put on that morning, anticipating this exact moment. Eager to not look like a pathetic charity case in front of her always-stylish friend, Christine also felt it was imperative to  _ not _ look like a phone sex worker when she visited the office. 

A floral slip dress seemed demure enough without looking secondhand, she determined, examining herself critically in the mirror on her closet door. Pink jelly flats and a choker, and then she was out the door. Ignoring the catcall from the telephone line repairman who’d been working down the block all week, she slipped on her denim jacket before turning towards the subway.

Traveling to the office turned out to be a stomach churning experience. Christine had only been there only once previously, when she was hired. She knew that somewhere beyond the reception area was the actual call center -- housing the dispatchers who took credit card information and the specific requests the callers might have, before patching them through to a phone actress or actor. 

Having to fill out her bio had been nerve-wracking at the beginning; an abbreviated little blurb describing her talents, her specialties, and what she wouldn't do; necessary for the dispatchers to have. She'd updated it twice since then, steadily removing things from her verboten list, realizing she was just limiting herself from potential regulars.

As the weeks passed and her bank account grew, Christine found there was very little she wouldn't do over the phone.

The thought of being there now though, after several months on the job, made her jittery. She wondered, as she pushed open the heavy door, if anyone she passed inside would automatically assume she was one of the operators.

They wouldn’t be wrong, of course, but it wasn’t necessarily something she wanted getting out. 

Though she’d taken care to dress as innocently as possible to meet Meg, she saw now that the sweet, floral dress and jelly flats were an unnecessary precaution. To her relief, the inner office waiting area was empty, save for her incredibly tense friend. 

Christine had never seen Meg look as miserable as she did at that moment, as the girl tried and failed to edge a word into the one-sided conversation that was obviously taking place through her headset. As Christine watched, she began to speak in a professional, placating tone, but the person on the other end of the call quickly cut her off. Meg’s lips pressed together once more, unhappily, her eyes tight.

“Robin called in today, so I just need to wait until mom gets back from lunch before we can leave, okay?” she’d told Christine, as the girl’s had made their own lunch plans that morning. 

As she watched Meg, the office door abruptly swung open behind her, and Christine stiffened, turning sharply. It was only Meg’s mother, she realized with a sigh, relaxing slightly as the older woman came striding into the reception area. Mrs. Giry was an older, sharper-eyed version of her daughter, dressed in a sleek, dark-colored skirt suit with a long jacket. Her raven hair was swept into a neat twist, and her heavily-lined eyes took in Christine’s appearance with a frown, before recognition bloomed on her narrow face. 

“Ah, you’re Meg’s friend from school! The singer, yes?”

Christine felt herself relax with a slump. Mrs. Giry had no idea she was the friend who worked for the service, evidently. “Yes, we’re having lunch!” she chirped as sunnily as she was able. The elder Giry turned with a smile to her daughter, freezing instantly when she saw her face, her sharp dark eyes narrowing.

For a moment that seemed to stretch for hours, Christine and Mrs. Giry stood side-by-side, watching Meg squirm.

“I'll tell her you called Mr---yes, I understand your--”

Meg’s call ended abruptly at that moment, the person on the other end obviously disconnecting before the little dancer had a chance to say any words in parting. She seemed to move in slow motion as she removed the headset from her glossy dark hair, setting it gingerly on the desk in front of her. Tugging the hem of her cropped sweater, Meg rose slowly from the desk.

“That was Erik Sloane, Mother. Again.” 

Christine’s head jerked up at the name, a name that had burrowed into her heart, that was always on her mind. She dismissed the thought as soon as it entered her mind, she was being silly. Erik was a common enough man’s name; there was little chance that the unpleasant phone call her friend had just taken was from  _ her _ Erik. 

“Chris, could you give me just a minute? We can leave in two shakes.”

She jumped when she realized she was being addressed and pasted the sunny smile back on her face. “Oh! Of course! It was nice seeing you again, Ms. Giry!”

The outer office door was heavy, but fortunately for her, the inner reception door was not, and Christine made sure to leave it slightly ajar as she exited to the outer waiting area.

“This is the third time he’s called, Mother. You need to do something about this! You can't just keep avoiding his calls, he's not going to go away.”

“I can’t imagine why he has such a bee in his bonnet over this all of a sudden, after all this time. Why now? I’ll take care of it this week.”

“You won’t,” Meg cut in angrily. “You’ll say that now, and then when he’s on the phone again in two days, frothing at the mouth, you’ll hide in your office like you did last time, and make me or Robin handle it! I don’t understand why you don’t just fire him!”

“With that voice?” the elder Giry snapped, and Christine almost swooned. 

It  _ was _ her Erik. It had to be.  _ Erik Sloane _ , she repeated to herself.

“And have him go make that kind of money for someone else? Absolutely not. We have the software security installation happening this coming week, that ought to placate him.”

Twenty minutes later, Christine was seating herself at a scuffed formica table across from her friend at a cafeteria-style lunch bar, just down the street from the office, caesar salads in front of them.

“Is everything okay?” she asked hesitantly. She’d made a point of being on the other side of the room when Meg had left the reception area, completely unsuspecting. “You seemed pretty keyed up during that phone call.”

Meg blew out a sharp breath between her teeth, rolling her eyes. Her perfect french tips tapped out an irritable cadence on the table. “I shouldn’t talk about it,” she muttered. 

Christine waited, letting the dissatisfaction and resentment belonging to her friend breathe and grow, until Meg leaned forward conspiratorially.

“So, obviously you can't repeat any of this...this guy who works for the company has gotten all crazy about wanting to know exactly what kind of precautions we take to ensure the safety of our operators.” Christine held her breath as Meg sipped her Snapple.

“Like, how secure are the lines and the personal information. I don’t know if he thinks someone can find out who he is or what, but he’s so,  _ so _ fucking mean. How do I have anything to do with that?! As if! Why would I be able to control the phone lines?!”

Christine felt a shiver run up her back. Friday Night Guy. The incident from a few weeks ago... that had to have been the impetuous behind Erik’s sudden interest in the security of the operators, if it was in fact  _ her _ Erik.

“Well... _ are _ there any security measures in place?” she asked hesitantly, pushing around her salad.

Meg blew out another frustrated breath. “That’s the thing that’s got him so worked up, there’s not really.”

Meg must have seen the panic in Christine’s eyes, as she hastily corrected herself.  “Like obviously, all of the employee records are kept off-site, so there’s no worry there,” she went on quickly. “I don’t know anything about how secure the phone lines are, but who would try to get into that? And mom said we have some kind of upgrade happening to the computers, I guess? He just needs to chill out.”

Christine nodded, staring into her salad, her appetite gone. Meg’s casual dismissal chilled her, and the horrible night from earlier in the week replayed in her mind.

.

.

“Will you do something for me if I asked you to?” 

His mellifluous voice ghosted against her neck, tickling her skin. Christine smiled softly, keeping her eyes closed. They’d been laying in bed together for nearly forty minutes, their conversation trailing off gradually. He’d been humming some soft, sweet little melody as sleep rapidly beckoned to her, when he suddenly spoke again.

The feeling of his fingertips gently dragging up the side of her thigh, fisting in the satin of her short nightgown before settling over her hip made her shiver. It would be only too easy for those long digits to slip between her legs, as they did so often.

“That depends on what it is.”

His sigh shifted in the bed beside her. Christine could feel the long line of him in the sheets at her back and stretched her toes through the cool fabric, vainly seeking his warmth.

“Don’t be such a baby,” she chided with a little laugh. “Fine, I’ll do anything you ask. Is that better?”

He didn't say anything for a long moment, and Christine was unable to keep her head from sinking back into her pillow. In the dark, the weight of his arm around her was a gentle pressure across her waist, pressing her down into the mattress. Safe and secure.

“I want you to quit.”

Instantly her eyes snapped open.

“Quit? What are you talking about? I’m trying to get back into school, I need the money! I almost have enough to pay for the next two semesters. We’ve talked about this.”

They  _ had _ talked about it previously. At length. He was nothing if not persistent, Christine thought, hearing him sigh into her ear once more before launching into what was clearly a well-rehearsed diatribe.

“Angel, it’s not safe. I worry about you constantly. Do you have any idea how easy it is to hack into this computer system? It’s just a matter of time before they switch over to the new block format, and then you’ll be dealing with twice the amount of creeps. If Renee actually cared about the security of her employees it’d be different, but she’s proven time and time again that she doesn’t.”

“But I only have the one creep,” she argued. “The other guys are harmless, really. They’re just normal, horny guys, just...just looking to make a connection.” Christine threw his own words back at him, daring him to contradict her.

“There are always going to be creeps,” he challenged, “but not like this. Something about the situation with this guy is off. Not in a good way, Angel.”

“Your just being paranoid,” she grumbled. The thought of Friday NIght Guy being a real live boogeyman out there beyond her door made her skin crawl, and she preferred not to think about it.  _ He can’t hurt you over the phone.  _

She was annoyed at the turn the conversation had taken, considering that she’d been moaning in pleasure only a short while earlier. She’d sung the Schumann for him, trying to convey what she felt for her maestro in every line.

_ Du meine Seele, du mein Herz, _

_ Du meine Wonn, o du mein Schmerz, _

Afterwards, he’d made her sing once more, flat on her back, cheeks flushed and voice raised in a breathy gasp. Christine didn't want the thought of her tormentor tainting the loveliness of such a wonderful evening with her maestro. 

Through the line he sighed once more. “Sweetheart, please--”

“Should I be worried about horny housewives waiting outside your door, is that what you’re saying? Women are crazy too, you know. Haven’t you ever seen Basic Instinct?  Or Single White Female?”

His low chuckle, a lick of velvet, curled her toes as it always did. “I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

“But what if one of them want to--”

“There is a fundamental difference in the way we do business, sweetheart.”

“But--”

“Where do you think I am?”

His question caught her off guard. It seemed perilously close to talking about himself, which was something she knew, after many attempts to learn more about him, that he was loathe to do. Christine stammered out a little laugh, feeling a low swoop in her stomach at the thought of him opening up to her at last. 

The warm feeling never got a chance to spread, as Erik’s next words, spoken in a clipped voice, completely unlike his normal plush, sensual tone, sent a wash of ice water up her spine.

“You can’t even guess, right? Now, where do I think you are? Let’s see, you’re young, early to mid-twenties, I can tell that from your voice, so nowhere expensive. You don’t have a Bronx or Staten Island accent, and it’s too noisy for Queens. You’re too soft for Harlem or Morningside. If I had to take a stab in the dark I would guess you’re somewhere in Brooklyn, or maybe Alphabet City--”

She shivered, the hair on the back of her neck raising. He was wrong, she thought with relief. His little game wasn’t going to work, because he was wrong.

“--or around Hell’s Kitchen. There’s a constant siren going off in the background, not as high-pitched as a squad car, and I don't hear it often enough to be rescue, so probably fire. I can tell when you move closer to your windows because there’s a sign outside that hums, so you’re probably on a lower floor, maybe over a deli or a bodega, something with low-quality fluorescents.”

Christine’s heart was slowly rising up to her throat.  _ There was no way he could know, right _ ? She reminded herself that she was in love with this man.  _ This man you’ve never even met _ .

“Are you keeping score, princess? How am I doing so far? How many hook and ladder companies are there in Brooklyn? Maybe four? One or two in Hell’s Kitchen? There’s just the one down here...if I were a sick fuck who wanted to rape you, to hurt you, do you really think it would be that hard for me to stake out the fire houses and get the lay of the land? Now I’ve got all this just from talking to you on the phone, talking to you every week like clockwork, learning the timing of the sounds around you at eight o’clock or whenever the fuck time it is when he calls. Do you think people who want to hurt you wouldn’t be paying attention to shit like this?”

Christine huddled, utterly terrified, in her cold, empty bed. The hand that gripped the edges of her sheets did so in terror.  _ Friday Night Guy _ . Christine almost always kept her small living room window open when she worked at night, letting in a bit of a breeze. If she were to leave her bed and go over to that window now, the green and red buzz of Sokoloff’s, the small shop she lived above in her fourth floor apartment would be illuminating the room. Ladder twenty one was visible just up the street.

Erik apparently wasn’t done scaring her, as he continued after a moment of letting his words sink in. “Now I’m armed with a rudimentary idea of where you might be, and whaddaya know, look how laughably easy this computer system is to breach. They wouldn’t even need to get into the financials, sweetheart. All he needs is a name.”

He was quiet then, letting her think.

“You can guess all that just from listening?” she asked in a small, quivering voice after another beat of silence had passed between them. It had been so long since she’d spoken that the sound of her voice made her flinch. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of confirming whether his guesses were right, but Christine assumed she didn’t need to.

“Yes,” he murmured softly. “And since you’ve told me even more than that, I know you can walk to your little restaurant with your financier boyfriend, so you’re not in Alphabet City. I know you’re close to a subway, close to that old library with the cancer ceiling that’s been in the news. First rule of this business is hiding who you are, princess. If I were someone who wanted to hurt you...you’ve made it too easy.”

The sheets tangled around her legs as she flung herself out bed, stumbling before she was able to kick them away. She crossed the small apartment in a frenzy, rushing to the window where the Sokoloff’s sign buzzed brightly, ensuring it was locked. He’d been persistent in reminding her to make sure the windows were locked almost every night for the past two weeks: now she knew why. 

Christine held the receiver away from her mouth, not wanting him to hear the shaky tears she was crying. Her feet detoured to the kitchen, after making sure she’d set the deadbolt and chain in the door, pausing in front of her small counter.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. You know I don’t want to upset you…”

His voice had returned to it’s normal velvet smoothness, comfortingly familiar. Swallowing down her tears, she let out a shuddering breath and slid a steak knife out of the silverware drawer.

“I only need a little bit more time,” she whispered. “Just a little more time...I need to know I have enough to get through the next school year.” She sniffled as she spoke, wincing when her voice broke on her next words. “I promise I’ll be more careful…”

“Shhh. We don’t have to talk about that right now,” he murmured gently. “Come back to bed, sweetheart.”

Not go to bed...come back to bed. Back to him, back to his arms.

When she slid back between the sheets, they were comforting once more, his arms instantly drawing her in. Christine felt his breath warm against her as he began to sing softly, the same tune he’d been humming earlier, felt the strength of his arms around her.

Safe and secure. 

As her eyelids began to droop, she reached a hand down, ensuring the handle of the knife she’d slipped between the mattress and box spring could be easily reached.

“I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you, Christine.”

His voice was little more than a whisper, but hearing her name --  _ her _ name, not a stage name or one of his many terms of endearment for her -- crossing  _ his _ lips, in a voice husky with some unfathomable emotion made her whimper and arch beneath the sheet. He was quiet then, and she strained to hear something,  _ any _ thing on his end of the line, but all that met her was silence. Christine closed her eyes and focused her breath, pretending she could hear the steady thump of his heartbeat beneath her ear. Before long, sleep once more called to her.

“Goodnight, Erik,” she whispered. _ I love you. _

“Goodnight, sweetheart. Sweet dreams.”

.

.

“What about the computer system?” Christine asked nervously, pushing her untouched salad around, thinking about Erik’s words. “Is it like, easy to hack or whatever?”

Meg huffed, pausing to chew before answering. “I have no idea, but there’s going to be some sort of security upgrade this week, the computer guys come on Tuesday. So Mr. Crazy on the phone can talk to the fucking hand after that.”

“I have to tell you something,” she blurted as Meg sipped her drink. Christine felt her face heat under her friend's raised eyebrow. “It-it happened a few weeks ago...I haven’t gotten in trouble yet, so I don’t know if that’s still coming or what…”

“What?! What happened?”

Christine took a deep breath before letting it out in a rush along with her words. “There’s this super creepy guy that calls and he  _ scares _ me, Meg. I tried reporting him to the switchboard, but they wouldn’t do anything...anyway, I-I hung up on him. Two Fridays ago. He called, and I couldn’t take it,” Christine sighed heavily, “and I hung up on him. The lady from the switchboard said I could get fired for that.”

Meg’s forehead was wrinkled in consternation as she listened to Christine ramble. 

“Hmm...well, with all this bullshit going on right now, I think you’re in the clear. Besides, you’ve been pulling in some really big numbers, that forgives a lot.”

Christine blinked at Meg’s words. It was technically payday, but she’d learned that because the checks were cut on Friday morning, the bank would hold the balance for twenty four hours. She’d gotten into the habit of picking up her check on Saturday afternoons to deposit. Her paycheck would be available for pickup the following day, but she made a point of keeping track of her calls. She hadn’t thought that the past two weeks had been much different than her norm, but she wasn't about to argue.

The catcalling phone line guys were gone when she walked home from the subway station, although their truck was still parked at the corner, she noticed. She had about two hours before Bud would call, expecting her to be enthusiastic about being violently deep-throated, and then Friday Night Guy would call. Christine debated showering when she arrived in her apartment, ultimately deciding she’d need the scalding hot water  _ after _ the night’s calls and changed into her little Umbros shorts and a babydoll tee instead.

She only managed to get fourteen minutes out of Bud that night, but managed several other calls, two before him and one right after. The call after Bud was a younger-sounding man, probably close to her own age, with the preppy, polished sort of voice she’d expect to hear coming from someone like Raoul. After orgasming noisily, he’d thanked her enthusiastically.

“Wow, that was great! I’ve never called one of these lines before, but holy shit, I can’t remember the last time I came that hard. I’ve got a mess to clean up here...worth every penny.”

Christine laughed, her cheeks turning pink. Normally the callers disconnected quickly after finishing, it was rare they’d stay on the line to chat. She didn’t especially want to hear about the guy’s messy ejaculation, she thought with a wrinkled nose, but the clock was still running, she reminded herself.

“How do I call you again? I work in the financial district, and I’m always passing the flyers on buildings, but I’ve never tried it before tonight. Can I request you again?”

After a few more minutes of idle chit chat, including giving the young man her extension and walking him through the process of calling her line directly, he disconnected. She smiled in satisfaction, the time she’d lost with Bud more than made up for, and a potential new regular to boot. Christine set her phone down and pushed out her chair, thinking she’d eat something before the dreaded call.

The cordless began to ring almost immediately, and a shiver passed through her.  _ He wouldn't be calling this early, you’re being paranoid _ . Friday Night Guy’s call was always a good bit later than this.

_ Deep breath, shoulders back. You can do this. _

“Hello?”

“Single White Female was terrifying. Why would you tell me to watch that? That poor guy got a shoe through his eyeball!”

She dissolved into giggles, gripping the table in relief. Even colored with mock outrage, his voice still shivered upm her spine, kissing at her throat. “I told you! Women are crazy too!”

“Mhmm. Well, you owe me now. C’mon, princess...let’s watch a movie.”

She sat up quickly from where she'd been slumped across the formica. “A movie?” she asked wonderingly.  _ Like a date _ ?

“Surely we have to own at least one of the same, right?”

Dangerous Liaisons, one of her favorites, was the movie they both owned and what she chose, waving around her VHS copy in triumph, as though he could see her. Christine curled contentedly into the corner of her little striped sofa, resting against his chest. She could feel his fingers threading through her hair as he chattered, giving her a scathing commentary that made her giggle and shush him repeatedly. Only once did she think about the money she was losing by not having her line open and available.

“Did you have fun with your friend today?”

She was in bed, the movie having ended nearly thirty minutes earlier. He’d gotten to hear her brushing her teeth, changing her clothes. Now she was going to curl up with him in her bed and log out of the system as soon as they disconnected.

“Yes. Did--did I tell you she’s the one who got me this job? Her mom is the one who owns the business.”

“Renee’s daughter? Interesting.”

“Mmhm. She was telling me there’s going to be a software upgrade to the security system? So like the computers, I guess, right? They’ll be safer, so you don’t have to worry about me as mu--”

“When?” he cut her off. Erik’s tone was different, sharper, and Christine blinked in surprise. “Did she say when that’s happening?”

“Um, Tuesday? She said the computer guys would be there on Tuesday.”

The other end of the line was quiet for a moment, and Christine could almost hear his thoughts racing frantically.

“Well, that’s good to hear,” he said at last, his voice almost back to the comforting gentleness he’d had earlier. “I’m glad you’ll be safer. I want you to log out as soon as I hang up, Christine. Okay? Sweet dreams, sweetheart.”

“Oh-okay,” she stammered, not expecting him to be hanging up already, normally liking to stay on the line until she was nearly asleep. She had picked up an early shift at the bistro for the following morning, so it was probably for the best, she thought.

“Goodnight, Erik.”

_ I love you. _

 


	4. Chapter 4

“Ohh, you’re making me come, baby...I’m about to come so hard, ohhh--”

Christine held the phone out with a wince as the young man on the other end erupted into noisy moans. It was the third time he’d called her now, and she’d learned several things over the course of the time spent on the phone with him: the length of the call -- and therefore the the cost -- was no issue, he was extremely vocal throughout and expected her to be as well, and his orgasms were long, loud, and incredibly enthusiastic. 

She couldn't help but compare his noisy climaxes with Erik’s quiet, near silent culminations.  _ He _ was interested in hearing her gasps and sighs of delight, wanted her to ‘sing for him,’ but he rarely gave much evidence to his own satisfaction. 

Christine pursed her lips and pushed thoughts of him away, annoyed with herself. She was  _ not _ thinking about  _ him _ . 

There had been no calls from Erik in the past several days, and she didn’t want to admit how much it bothered her, how much his unusual silence hurt. When she’d sat wallowing in loneliness and sadness on Sunday night, she had been tempted to dial him on the switchboard line to ask what she’d obviously done to upset him, but every time her hand reached for the receiver, she’d falter. Erik had been the one doing the calling for weeks, but since that past Friday, the night of their movie date as she’d been dreamily referring to it in her head, he’d been a ghost.

Rationally, Christine knew it was ridiculous to be upset, knew this man didn’t owe her anything. He’d told her he had several different projects he was currently juggling, she knew he was busy. 

_ He’s busy doing actual work and you’re being a ridiculous baby _ , she tried telling herself sternly.

Rationality didn’t do much to keep the hurt at bay.

She’d been surprised when he hadn’t called her late on Saturday, but brushed it off, reminding herself of the various freelance gigs he’d told her about. When he’d missed their lesson on Sunday afternoon, Christine had sat in her living room for a long time, staring unseeing at the sunny window. The sound of the city, vibrant and alive just beyond, seemed a million miles away from where she was; alone, an empty shell. 

She missed her father. She missed waking up on Sunday mornings to the smell of pancakes and bacon, to the sound of her father singing along to the oldies station on the little radio above the microwave. He would play with a handful of different musical groups on evenings and weekends; Sundays afternoons was spent fiddling at an Irish pub-themed restaurant that was popular with tourists. Dinner would be brought home each week in styrofoam containers--boxty and corned beef and loaded potato skins--which they would share at the small kitchen table as she did homework in the glow of the Sokoloff’s buzzing sign. The most taxing thing she’d had to worry about then was passing her music theory mid-term.

Safe and secure.

As ridiculous as she knew it was, the only time she felt that same sense of security anymore was when Erik called her. Having him absent those past several days, after weeks of being swathed in the plush velvet of his voice, with his deep chuckle and the illusion of closeness he created, had left her floundering. 

Going to bed without his voice in her ear had made sleep nearly impossible. Every creak of the floorboards overhead made her jump, the slamming of doors throughout the building, the nonstop commotion of traffic outside the window...as she’d huddled in her bed, fervently wishing for the feel of his arms around her, alone and lonely for the first time in weeks, she’d strained to hear the neon hum of the Sokoloff’s sign outside her living room window until her eyes finally closed.

It was Monday evening now, a full 72 hours since she'd last spoken to him, and she wondered if he’d given up on her entirely.

“That was fantastic,” the enthusiastic man on the phone was saying cheerfully, “as always! This is the best way to rub one out...you need to let me know if you ever make the leap to live in person, if you know what I mean.”

Her nose had wrinkled on its own as he spoke, but his last words tightened her stomach. It wasn’t the first time that a caller had asked if she did “house calls,” and she’d always been able to laugh it off and deflect the inquiries away, but  _ this _ guy was a talker. The clock was still running and she should be glad, but frankly, she’d decided she appreciated it more when they just hung up after they’d finished. 

Several minutes more of feigning enthusiasm passed before she was finally replacing the phone in the cradle, carrying her plate of pizza bagel crumbs and empty Snapple bottle to the sink. The line had begun to ring again before she’d even turned around and Christine stayed busy for the majority of the following several hours.

_ Good _ , she thought to herself, as she perched on the edge of her tub. She’d discovered that a squeezy juice bottle produced an authentic-sounding stream when she slowly depressed it, emptying the water she’d filled within into her toilet bowl slowly for the benefit of her panting caller.  _ If your busy, you’re not thinking of him _ .

She cursed herself the instant the thought crossed her mind, the  _ him _ in question being brought to the forefront once more.

At long last the phone line grew quiet.  _ Not a bad night _ . None of the calls that evening had been especially taxing -- lots of first timers who just wanted her to coo encouragement as they frantically beat off on the other end of the line. There hadn’t been any requests to pretend she was anyone’s sister or boss, she hadn’t needed to act out undressing in front of an open window, and almost every call had lasted close to fifteen minutes.

Christine had made it a habit to stay logged into the system as she prepared for bed each night, not wanting to miss any potential final calls that might be patched through to her extension. Padding around the small apartment, she systematically checked all the windows and ensured the deadbolt and chain were set on her door. Teeth were brushed, her face scrubbed pink, hair pulled into a high bun. Leaning into the mirror, she examined a stray end of one of her curls, frowning at the split end before stepping back to eye herself critically. 

The oversized Ace of Bass t-shirt she’d tugged on was a far cry from the ivory slip she wore in her fantasies with him. Spaghetti-strapped and edged in lace, Christine had fingered the smooth, thigh-skimming satin every time she and Meg went to Victoria’s Secret, and told herself  _ someday _ each time.

She turned away from the mirror, exasperated with herself once more for bringing the thought of  _ him _ and the time she spent in his arms to mind.  _ He doesn’t care about you, stupid...you’re just another girl on the phone, a drab little mouse. _

The cordless rang just as she was settling into bed.  _ See, this is why you don't log out early _ , she reminded herself before answering in her voice of practiced, breathy nonchalance. Calls this late usually went one of two ways--fast and furious, the men on the other end of the line already about to pop; or exceptionally deviant, the men who waited until the darkest part of the night to indulge their rape or incest fantasies. Christine crossed her fingers for the former option.

Silence greeted her on the other end of the line, and after several beats Christine blinked in confusion.

“Hello?”

Still nothing, although as she closed her eyes and focused, she was certain she could hear someone breathing. A creeping chill began to move up her spine as she became more certain with each passing second that there  _ was _ in fact someone on the other line. The tiny hairs on her arms and neck stood out as gooseflesh prickled her skin.

“Is anyone there?”

Nothing but the barest hint of breath. As Christine reminded herself that the clock was running, her hand drifted down to finger the handle of the steak knife that was still wedged beneath her mattress. When the phantom caller disconnected just before the three minute mark, she released the breath she’d been holding with a shudder. 

_ It was probably some dumb kid calling the line with their parent’s credit card on a dare,  _ she told herself firmly.  _ Some kid or just some anxious guy, too nervous to say anything. _

She’d had those calls before, after all, thinking of her early days with the service: the men who didn’t want to talk, who only wanted to be heard masturbating.  _ But you knew when that was happening… _

Christine shuddered again, knowing her inner voice was right. She’d always been able to hear the evidence of what was happening on those calls, would be able to hear their heavy breathing and the sound of skin desperately moving on skin followed by their wheezing, straining release. As twisted as it was, those noises were comfortingly familiar.

_ This _ had been unnerving. She didn’t know why the silence on the other end of the phone had seemed menacing, but it had.

It had, and so it was. 

“You need to stop disregarding your instincts, sweetheart. If it feels wrong, it  _ is _ wrong. Don’t be so worried about being nice, that’s how you wind up in someone’s trunk.”

That conversation had taken place one evening as she told him about the man who’d accosted her outside of the bistro after her shift several days prior. She had recognized him as a customer from earlier that same day as soon as he’d latched onto her arm. Tony had wanted to cut him off at the bar, but the shift manager hadn’t allowed it, leaving the affable bartender in a snit. The man had been standing outside smoking when Christine left for the day, had blocked her path on the sidewalk, forcing her into a slurred conversation. 

She hadn’t told Erik about the way the man had put his hand on her hip, pulling her into him, asking if she wanted to “earn some spending money on the side.” She’d broken free with an uncomfortable laugh, stepping into the street to move past him, and hurried home with her cheeks burning. 

She sank back to her pillow now, a hundred different horrific scenarios about the mystery caller running through her head, each more terrifying than the last. 

What if Erik’s crazy paranoia was justified, and someone had broken into the personnel records? What if it was Friday Night Guy, calling to scare her, or to listen for the sounds around her apartment, as Erik had intimated it being easy to do? 

When the phone rang again a moment later, Christine whimpered out loud, her fingers brushing the knife handle once more before lifting the handset. Her voice was little more than a whisper when she answered this time, a leaf shivering on the end of a barren branch, her eyes screwed shut in fear, anticipating the ominous silence once more.

“Christine?”

_ His _ voice, dark and rich, heavy with concern, speaking her name.

“Erik,” she gasped out, feeling the air rush out of her, glad she was in bed at the moment, for undoubtedly her knees would have buckled, sending her to the floor.

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong? Are you alright? Christine, did something happen?”

There it was again,  _ her _ name with  _ his _ voice! His warm, rescuing voice, pulling her from the churn of icy water she’d been trapped in for the several days of his absence, and she gripped the life preserver greedily, letting his voice wrap snugly around her as he murmured gently in her ear.

“I know it’s just stupid, I’m being silly.” She forced out a self-deprecating laugh as she finished telling him what had happened, pushing away the shivering fear that had gripped her. He had been quiet as she told him about the call, had pressed her to remember if she’d ever received such a call before.

“I’ll thank you not to call yourself stupid again...now, try to remember, sweetheart. You’ve never had a call like this before?”

She hadn’t, she knew she would remember this feeling of creeping dread, of looming shadows, of--

“Once,” she blurted, interrupting her own thoughts as a memory surfaced of a call from weeks earlier. “But it was in the daytime. They cut me at the bistro and I logged into the service early since I was home...but that call was shorter, and it--it wasn’t scary. Not like this.” 

It hadn’t been scary because the sun had been shining, her brain instantly supplied, as soon as the words had left her mouth. She’d just slipped into her Umbros, was still hanging up her work clothes when the short call had come through. It didn't even register as being out of the ordinary at the time, as she went through her little routine.

“D-do you think it’s him?”

Erik hesitated a long moment before responding to her quavering whisper. “I think it’s probably nothing. Some John too afraid to say anything, like you said. I don’t want you to worry about it.”

Christine clung clung to the steadiness of his voice, the surety of his words. 

Safe and secure.

“It’s late princess, you should go to bed,” he murmured and she squeaked out an indignant laugh. The irony that she’d been trying to go to bed before the unnerving phone call wasn’t lost on her, nor was the fact that if she had, she’d have missed Erik’s call well.

“I was,” she explained, stretching her legs in the cool sheets. “I was just about to logout off the system when that call through. I would have missed you too.”

“Nevermind that, I would rather have missed you than for you to have been upset. You’re off tomorrow, right?”

Christine took a deep breath, letting herself sink into the pillow once more. It was nice to have someone who knew her schedule, to matter enough to anyone to be kept track of. “No, I picked up an extra shift. It’s fine though, I need the money…y-you missed our lesson.” She winced at her stammer, at the way her voice trailed off, at the fact that she gave voice to her thought at all. 

_ He’s here now! _ What did it matter if she’d spent the last three days twisting in misery without his voice there, trying in vain to shove all thoughts of him out of her mind?

“I know, and I’m sorry, angel.” His voice was regretful and sincere, and she allowed it to tuck around her, pulling her closer. “Something came up last minute with a tight deadline, it couldn’t be helped. I should have let you know though, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she lied. “I know you’re busy...I-I missed you.”

“I missed you too, sweetheart.” His voice was a soft purr, kitten-soft as it caressed her shoulders and ghosted at her neck. “Come to bed, you need to be up early.”

“Alright...I-I guess I’ll say goodnight…”

“I’m not hanging up, Christine. Just...please just come to bed.”

She didn't argue further, as there was nothing she wanted more than to curl in to bed with him. She felt the long, firm line of his body in the sheets, tucked her head against his shoulder as her eyes fluttered shut. She sighed softly when she felt his arms come around her, felt his lips move across her forehead. 

“I want you to go out tomorrow after work. Go have fun with your girlfriends, go shopping, go to dinner, just treat yourself. No calls. You need a break, Christine. Okay?” 

“Okay,” she whispered, powerless to disobey the firmness in his tone. She felt herself sink into the golden amber of his voice, dark and sticky like buckwheat honey, pulling her down, keeping her suspended in his embrace. “Will you be too busy to call me tomorrow?”

Erik hesitated a brief moment, and the spell was nearly broken. “I hope not to be, sweetheart. I’ll do my best to catch you before you’re asleep, okay? On Wednesday I want to hear you run through all of your audition pieces.”

“Yes, Maestro,” she laughed softly, pressing her face into the pillow, happy to have her lesson to look forward to. Singing for Erik was the bright spot of her weeks, closely followed by the things they would do  _ after _ her lesson…

”Goodnight, Erik.”  _ I love you. _

Somewhere, in a tiny corner of her mind, she was terrifyingly cognizant of the fact that Erik had never insisted on staying on the line as she slept before, that he really  _ was _ concerned about her strange call from earlier, that she’d missed some crucial context behind it and the previous call like it...but when he began to sing that same sweet, lilting little tune, she slumped against him, too exhausted to care. Nothing would happen to her as long as he was there.

Safe and secure.

“Sweet dreams, sweetheart.”

.

.

“Chrissy? There’s someone here for you.”

Christine jumped in the booth where she sat, rolling silverware. She was seated along the far wall of the bistro, a heap of white linen in front of her. The small dining room was open to her, although she wasn't worried about being spotted.

Raoul and his co-workers had ceased their twice weekly lunch visits. Christine knew she was the cause, knew her lack of communication with him had been shitty. Although she regretted it, there was nothing she could do about that now. 

_ Such a little coward, Christine _ .

She’d been too gripped by terror to address it at the time, but Erik’s comment about her “financier boyfriend” rubbed her the wrong way. She didn’t want him thinking she was involved with someone, even casually. The thought of Raoul potentially being there at the bistro now made her skin crawl, but she hoped that Hannah would have alerted her in warning.

Her early lunch shift was just about over, she realized, pushing her completed stack of linen bundles to the side. Rising stiffly from the booth, Christine made her way to the front of the dining room, sighing in relief when she saw Meg waiting at the hostess counter. 

“Hey! What’s up, is everything alright?”

She could see, even as she asked, that things were  _ not _ alright. Meg’s normally sparkling eyes were shadowed, an air of exhaustion hanging over her.

“I need to day drink,” her friend said miserably. “When do you get off?”

“Oh! In about twenty minutes, actually...we can just stay here, Tony’ll give us a discount at the bar. We’ll get some food so you don’t pass out, okay?”

Thirty minutes later, the girls were seated in a booth just outside of Hannah’s section, Seabreezes and a platter of spinach and artichoke dip in front of them.

“Okay, what’s going on? You look terrible.”

That wasn’t completely true, she admitted to herself. Meg was immaculately dressed as always, in a short, black skater dress with white collars and cuffs. The pleated white placket at the neckline gave the illusion of being prim and proper; an illusion destroyed by her white over-the-knee socks and thigh-skimming hem.

“Harsh, Christine,” Meg scowled. “I’ll have you know the last two days have been a  _ complete _ disaster.” She paused mournfully, gulping at her drink, and Christine was reminded that her friend was a pro at selling drama. “I almost wish I were back in school! Mom has been on a fucking tirade...it's all such a mess.”

“Are you going to tell me what happened or do I need to start guessing?”

“We were hacked!” Meg hissed, leaning forward over the booth. Christine felt a chill run up the back of her neck at her friend’s words. She gripped the edge of the table as Meg continued.

“The entire system, Christine! The call records, the financials, everything. Like, less than two days before we were supposed to get that security installation I told you about! Can you even believe it? It’s like they knew it was coming!”

“The personnel records?” she demanded in a shaky voice. “Meg, did they get into they get into the employee personnel files? Like that--that guy who was calling you was worried about?”

Meg blew a shiny dark lock of hair from her eye with a huff, pausing to sip at her drink once more. “That’s the damned joke, they didn’t. Him calling was what prompted mom to even order this stupid security upgrade in the first place, because that lunatic has been so crazy and mom felt she had to do something.”

“Then what is it they were after? Just credit card numbers?” She felt her shoulders slump in relief.  _ This is just a scam to rip off credit cards, that’s all it is _ .

Meg huffed again, shaking her head in annoyance. “If only it were that simple. They went through the call logs, pulled the information tied to the credit cards. So like, yes, they took the financial stuff. But you know how your name shows up on the store side of a receipt?”

Christine nodded. The girls had gone to the mall a few weeks prior and Christine had treated herself to a bottle of her favorite vanilla body spray from Victoria’s Secret. “Someday I’m going to be able to afford to buy my nightgown,” she’d bemoaned as she signed the sales slip after swiping her debit card. She’d noticed that her name was indeed across the bottom of the slip of paper the employee slipped into a slot in the register after Christine handed back the pen.

“So like, same thing, when a caller gives their credit card number to the dispatcher, their name shows up on our end. Whoever got into the system didn't just take all the credit card numbers, they went through the call logs to tie the numbers to specific callers. At least that’s what mom said the computer guy thinks.”

“For what though? Why would they need to know that? What difference does that make?”

“Blackmail? Extortion? Who knows? Like, maybe one of your regulars is a congressman or something. Now this person can tell it was them calling you at eight thirty on a Tuesday night, they have the credit card records to prove it, and they blackmail them for calling a sex line.”

Christine thought about Bud and his violent fellatio fantasies being some sort of judge or senator and snorted with laughter.  _ You love choking on my cock, don’t you, little slut? _

“Well, I’m sorry it’s been such a nightmare for your mom,” Christine said easily, feeling the tension leave her shoulders. If her personal information was still safe, she didn’t really care about the men who called her to masturbate. “But I’m glad to hear the employee records were safe. Your name is in there too, Meggie.”

“That’s true.” Meg shifted in the booth, reaching for a chip. “But this isn’t over. Mom is having the computer guys go through everything with a fine tooth comb now. Any irregularities in the billing, anything weird. You better hope your big spender isn’t some bigwig who could be blackmailed, Christine,” she chuckled, draining the last of her drink.

“Wha-what do you mean?” Christine stiffened at Meg’s question, feeling her stomach clench. When she’d picked up her last paycheck, she’d noticed immediately that she’d been overpaid. At the time she’d persuaded herself that someone, maybe her enthusiastic new regular, had called in a tip for her, she knew that was technically a thing they could do…She swallowed hard at the thought that she’d simply been granted a gift in the form of a payroll  mistake.

“Don’t give me that. You kept that guy on the phone for almost two hours the one night, I don’t even want to know what he’s into! You’ll be back to school in no time at this rate!”

Christine gaped, forcing herself to shut her mouth after a moment. She’d never kept any caller on the line that long, she didn't need to check her own handwritten records to check. It  _ had _ been a mistake, a terrible mistake and she would have to pay it back once the investigation into the system was complete.

“Let’s go out tonight. Please, Chris?” Meg whined dramatically, tugging Christine’s hand across the table to her. “Let’s go dancing. Maybe you’ll meet someone!”

She didn’t correct her friend’s assumption that she wanted to meet anyone, didn’t bother telling Meg that she already had met someone. It would have invited too many questions that she didn’t have answers to, and Christine acknowledged with a heavy heart that it wouldn't make a difference anyways. It  _ wasn't possible _ , he’d said.

“Yes, let’s!” she readily agreed, thinking of her promise to take the night off. 

“Really?!” Meg squealed excitedly. “Oh, awesome! I thought I was going to have to beg! You don’t need to go home for anything, do you? There’s a place by the office that does airbrush acrylics now! We can go get our nails done and get ready at my place. You can keep me company while I cover Robin’s lunch.”

Thinking of Erik’s order to treat herself, Christine readily agreed. He was right, she thought. She  _ did _ need a break.

.

.

She never drank this much. 

As she swayed, Christine reminded herself once more that she  _ never _ drank this much, and it was stupid to have done so that night. The music was a deafening pulse that thumped through her, the body behind her was warm with a wide hand that firmly spanned her hip, and her head spun.

_ Wanna be my lover, wanna be my lover  _

His voice was a low rumble at her shoulder, deep and heavy with desire, and Christine let her head drop back as the broad expanse of his chest as his hand caressed her thighs under her short skirt. The repetitive lyrics of the song only increased the reeling spin of the room, and when one of his long fingers slipped under the edge of her panties to stroke her, she gasped, arching under his touch.

_ Wanna be my lover, wanna be my lover  _

The flashing lights of the club still strobed behind her closed eyes as his fingers moved against her, circling through her slick folds with ease, pulling a breathy moan from her throat. She was incredibly aroused, she wanted this, wanted  _ him _ so badly. His movements against her were imprecise; his thin, graceful finger lacked their normal dexterity, were not rubbing at her little pearl as effectively and pleasurably as he normally did…

_ It’s because you’re not singing _ , she told herself, shifting against his hand, moving her hips to help him find the right spot, the spot that made her sing for him.  _ He never touches you when you’re dancing, you need to sing. _

Christine’s eyes opened with a snap, squinting under the flashing lights above her head. The room still spun and she struggled to hold onto the thought that had broken through the fog in her mind. 

_ Erik never touched her when she was dancing _ ...

The voice at her shoulder was deep, but it was not rich and rolling, it didn’t press against her like a velvety caress. The hand that moved against her did not possess long, dexterous musician’s fingers. Thick, ineffective digits rubbed between her legs clumsily, the deep voice above her was stale with cigarettes and alcohol.  _ This was not Erik _ , her inner voice screamed, forcing her to lucidity. The man that her come up behind her as she danced, who had ground his body against hers, pulling her into his erection before he began touching her was not Erik, was definitely  _ not Erik _ .

_ Wanna be my lover, wanna be my lover  _

She jerked away, stumbling into people in her borrowed Candies platform heels. She turned slightly, just long enough to watch him suck her essence from his fingers. The room continued to pulse and sway as the lights flashed and music thudded through her chest. Christine pushed her way through the throng of people on the dance floor, struggling to get back to the bar as she gasped for breath, desperate to get away from the man, to ignore the tingling ache he’d ignited between her thighs.  _ You’re like a cat in heat, you should have let him finish the job _ , she thought disdainfully.  _ It might be funny if it weren’t true. _ Pressing her thighs together briefly, she continued to push through the crowd, desperate to find Meg before the night devolved any further.

.

.

They’d barely been in the club for thirty minutes when he’d spotted her. It had been Meg’s idea, to go to The Bois, a trendy new club catering to uptown professionals. It shouldn’t have surprised her when Raoul had been there, spotting her at the bar--that was simply her luck. He’d dodged through the crowd of people moving to a Jamiroquai song on the small first floor dance floor to corner her.  

“Look, I-I’m sorry if I moved too fast that night, Christine. I never wanted to do anything that would scare you off...I hope we can start again? Please?”

She’d been frozen under his blue-eyed gaze, earnest and honest and far too innocent for the likes of her. All of the lines she’d practiced in her mirror fled and Christine gaped like a fish, her mind empty and inert. Raoul was a nice guy, a sweet guy, and maybe if she’d met him before this summer things would be different...but now they  _ were _ different,  _ she _ was different, and she knew it -- they -- couldn’t work.

Fortunately, rescue had come in the way of an unlikely hero.

“There you are! This place is excellent!” called an enthusiastic voice, and she and Raoul had both turned. It was a voice that Christine recognized, she’d realised instantly, to her horror. A voice she’d heard moaning loudly as he orgasmed on the phone with her, cheerfully telling her what a mess his ejaculation had made. 

The man belonging to the voice was a bit older than Raoul, but had the same preppy, privileged air about him. Another man at his side could have been Raoul’s clone, and she assumed it was the older brother he’d mentioned to her several times when they’d been out together. 

“Who’re your friends?” her unnamed caller asked with a bright, slightly predatory smile, his white teeth blinding.

_ Don’t say anything, don’t let him hear your voice. Stupid, Christine, so stupid. _

“We were just telling him that the women here are beautiful tonight! Just what you need to get over that little back alley cocktease, Raoul!”

“And a hell of a lot cheaper than a whore on the phone,” the other man muttered, causing Mr. Enthusiasm to burst into laughter.

“Hey, that was just a suggestion! You’re the one who said he needs to get laid...and that broad’s worth every penny, I’m telling you.”

Christine and Raoul had each tuned a deep shade of red, but before she was forced to respond, Meg had swooped in with a scowl on her narrow face. 

“Yeah, as if. We don’t talk to men who call women whores, and I can  _ promise _ you, you sure as hell couldn’t afford me with that cheap knockoff Rolex.” Christine had reflected that Meg was probably wrong about the watch, but her friend was already onto her next victim. Swinging to Raoul, she’d fixed him with her mother’s piercing, withering glare, causing him to visibly gulp. “You want another chance with her? Make better friends. C’mon Christine.”

She allowed herself to be pulled away by the hand, nearly choking on her relief and giddy with her near miss, counting her blessings for her fearless, full-of-herself friend.

Now, as she stumbled through the crowd, that felt like it had been hours ago. Once it became clear that the men weren’t following, Christine relaxed, letting Meg buy her their first round, and then a succession of men at the bar. It wasn’t long before they were clinging hands and giggling, moving upstairs to the dance floor where they were plied with more drinks before losing each other in the sea of writhing bodies.

Once she’d broken free of the man who’d touched her, Christine pushed her way off the dancefloor, finding Meg eventually leaning against a wall, her pupils blown wide.

“I...I think we drank too much, Chrissy. Let’s go home, I think I’m going to be sick. We’ll call my mom’s car service, they can let you off right at your door.”

It wasn’t until she was back in her apartment alone that the reality of the night sank in. She’d let a stranger touch her, had let him touch her, wishing it had been him. If she’d been sober, she would likely have been more upset with herself, but at the moment all she think of was the touch of the man’s fingers against her, and how much she wished it had been the touch of another.

Finding her cordless in its cradle, she dialed the switchboard number, keying in his extension from memory.

“Christine?”

His voice was rougher than she was used to. He sounded drained and tired, once more too busy for her.

“You didn’t call me,” she heard herself whimper in an wobbly voice. The fact that he might have tried calling earlier was lost on her in her drunken state.

“Sweetheart, you sound--”

“You didn’t call me,” she repeated, tears suddenly pricking her eyes. “You had more important things to do.”

“You’re drunk,” he said calmly, in an even voice, evading her question. His steadiness was a thorn, twisting into her heart. How could he be calm when she was in such a tumult? How could he not understand the way she felt about him? “You need to--”

“I am,” she agreed, laughing bitterly as she cut him off. “I’m drunk and I’m horny, but you don’t care about that. You don’t care about me at all.” Offense colored his rebuttal, but Christine pushed on heedlessly, alcohol-fueled emotion forcing the words out.

“I did what you said, I went out with my friend, I tried to have fun. I let a stranger put his hands on me and I drank too much and anything could have happened, but you don’t care. You say you do, but you _don’t_ _care_ about me. I let a complete stranger touch me because I wanted it to be _you_ , it _could_ be you, but you don’t care.” 

She tasted the salt of her tears as she sniffled in the silence that followed her outburst, and for a moment Christine wondered if he’d simply hung up as she was speaking.

“You think I don’t care,” he said slowly. She remembered the sharp hurt in his voice the day she’d plead with him to meet her, the day he’d told her i _ t wasn’t possible _ . She shivered to hear that sound, raw and bitter, like steel on stone, coming from him again. “You think I don’t care about you, about the time we spend together? About your music and your future? You think I  _ want _ to imagine you with other men?” 

His words were a gash that bled to the bone, and in a pitiful whimper she tried to stop him, to take back the words she’d said, but Erik talked over her the way she’d done to him.

“I have terrible news for sweetheart, I’m just a man, and my thoughts are as filthy as any other man’s. You think I don’t want to have you in my bed, to hold you in my arms? You think you’re the only one who  _ wants _ , Christine? Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, my dear. I want, I want very badly, but fate has conspired to put this situation outside of my control.” 

_ You should have told him how much he means to you, how he’s the only one who makes you feel safe and happy and cherished. You should have told him you loved him, _ she berated herself, her tears falling in earnest then.  _ Now you’ve ruined everything. _

“I’m sorry,” she whispered through her tears, her sharp, hitching gasps vibrating her chest.

Several moments passed before she heard him sigh. When he spoke again, his voice was gentle and soft; a warm, cashmere blanket wrapping around her. “Quiet now, sweetheart. No more tears. I’m the one who’s sorry, I shouldn’t speak to you that way. I want you to take some Advil and a big glass of water, and then come to bed. You’re going to have a hell of a headache tomorrow.”

The events of the day and tumult of the evening caught up with her once she’d shed her dress and climbed into bed after following his orders. Her head felt impossibly heavy and darkness rapidly closed in on her as he hummed her the same soft little lullaby. 

“Are we going to sing tomorrow?”

His low chuckle warmed her and his fingers threaded gently through her hair as he held her close. “Why don't we see how you’re feeling...maybe just a movie tomorrow. When you wake up, you might not even remember this...” She let her head sink into her pillow, his strong arms snug around her. “Sweet dreams, angel.”

“Goodnight Erik,” she murmured with her last vestige of consciousness. His breath was warm and his embrace comforting. She didn't want to leave his arms, not ever.

Safe and secure.

“I love you.”

.

.

Living up the street from the fire house meant the sound of sirens was familiar. Ladder 21 had trucks coming and going at various points in the day, and the slow wail of the fire siren was white noise to her. 

When she heard the sirens early that morning, she thought nothing of it as she turned on her side, the dull ache in her skull that Erik had predicted being an unfortunate reality. For nearly an hour she drifted in and out of sleep, the piercing shrillness of the sirens never slowing. 

Staggering from her bed to the kitchen, after being jolted awake once more by the shrill wail, Christine fetched herself a fresh glass of water and several more Advil before she peered blearily out her window. Flashing blue and red illuminated the block, five cars in all. The police cars explained why the shrillness was so different than the white noise of the ladder company sirens, all clustered up the street, two blocks from her apartment. 

The alleyway the commotion was centered around was one she walked past several times a week on her way to the subway, she mused. Christine wondered what had happened for a moment before turning away, deciding that it didn't compare to her ache in her head.  _ It has nothing to do with you, why worry _ , she told herself before dropping tiredly back into her bed, letting darkness claim her once more.


	5. Chapter 5

“Hi, sweetheart.”

Christine dropped her head drop back against the sofa with a sigh, letting the plush softness of his voice curl around her. She’d been waiting anxiously for his call for the last thirty minutes; thirty minutes of forcing herself to stay seated, picking at the striped upholstery, rather than pacing anxiously as she was itching to do; thirty minutes of wondering if he'd decided she wasn't worth the trouble.

When she’d finally rolled out of bed, late that morning, Christine had stood under the flow of her shower, the water at the hottest setting her skin could handle until it went tepid. Bright sunlight had streamed through the windows, illuminating beams of dust motes that danced through the air when she’d finally made it to her kitchen to pour herself a bowl of cereal.

From her window she was able to see police tape blocking off the alley up the block, a lone patrol car sitting where the early morning fracas had taken place.  _ Guess that’s all over now _ . 

The hot shower and food had gone a long way towards making her feel human again, although she knew Erik would huff over her having dairy so close to her lesson.  _ Erik _ . The mere thought of him, as she flipped on her small television and sank into the sofa to await his call, sent nervous butterflies tremoring through her. 

Christine hoped he wasn't angry with her over her call the night before, hoped she hadn’t made too great a fool of herself. She didn’t completely remember all that was said during their conversation the previous evening, but she remembered her tears, and the soothing rock of his voice providing the current upon which she’d drifted to sleep.

_ You’re never drinking again.  _

Tardiness was not Erik's signature, although, she reminded herself, as the clock steadily ticked past the time he was supposed to call her, he had gone several days without contacting her recently, and she had most likely been an overly emotional idiot the previous night...when the phone finally, finally rang, Christine was vibrating with nerves.

There was a slight roughness in his voice again, a slowness he didn’t normally possess, but it didn’t detract from the seductive purr to which she was accustomed. The velvet of his tone dragged sluggishly against her and her back arched.

“Hi,” she murmured breathily, nervously. 

“How’s your head faring today, angel?”

She remembered that too, him ordering her to drink a glass of water with her Advil to begin staving off her inevitable hangover. 

“It’s not as bad as it was earlier,” she admitted with a laugh. “Someone made me drink a big glass of water...you sound tired,” she offered tentatively, not wanting to cause offense or pry.

“I‘m f--” 

He stopped abruptly, and Christine could hear him take a slow, dragging breath.

“...I-I suppose I’m feeling a touch under the weather today, my dear.” 

Christine was certain he’d begun to tell her he was fine, before his uncharacteristic reveal and her stomach swooped.  _ Real _ . Flesh and blood real with an aching back or a touch of the flu or...or it didn't matter, she thought. He didn't feel well and he was  _ real _ .

“You poor thing,” she crooned before she could think better of it. “It’s probably because you haven’t been getting enough sleep, you work too much. We should skip singing today, you need to rest.”

“That’s...probably for the best,” came his heavy reply a moment later, and her already clenched stomach twisted further with longing so deep, so intense that she felt as though it were knotting her insides. The ache to hold him close left her breathless.

She’d been sick exactly once since her father had died, and it had been completely miserable. Huddled on the sofa, she'd bundled in blankets, shivering despite her fever, with no one to look after her or care.

_ Erik takes care of you, and he would care if you were sick,  _ the voice in her head piped up _. _ He’d never said as much, almost never said anything about himself at all, but Christine had the impression that her maestro was as alone in the world as she. He  _ did _ take care of her, even if it was from afar, she agreed with herself, determined to return the favor.

“You’re going to come lie down on the sofa and put your head in my lap,” she murmured before she could stop herself. “We're just going to take it easy today. Maybe we could watch t.v. or something…” 

Her voice trailed off then, bravado failing when the other end of the phone line remained silent, and her cheeks heated.  _ So stupid, Christine...he probably just wants to hang up and not be bothered by you. You  probably made a fool of yourself last night and you’re taking him away from work. “ _ Un-unless you'd rather just--”

“No, that sounds perfect, sweetheart,” he interrupted gently. “Resting sounds...perfect. Tell me about your day off.”

The details of her afternoon with Meg, once they’d left the bistro, was what she narrated for him, their nail appointment and then trying makeup samples at Bloomingdale's before going back to Meg’s apartment to change for their evening.

He wasn’t listening to her, not really. 

Christine knew as she prattled that Erik didn’t actually care about the details of her morning at work, about what she and Meg had done after. The droning white noise of her voice was what he craved, and she was happy to provide it, if it helped him rest. The weight of his head across her legs was a solid pressure that kept her anchored to the sofa; his breath warm against her.

“What did you get on your nails?”

Christine blinked, startled out of her babbling by his question. He might have been paying attention after all, it seemed.

“Oh! Um..a pink french with little flowers. The tech did a butterfly on my ring fingers.” 

She blushed, fearing he would find her juvenile.  _ You should have said something sexy, should have thought of what Angel would have had done _ ...No, Christine argued with herself. The beauty of her relationship with Erik was that she didn’t have to be anyone but herself, didn’t have to pretend...he only wanted her. 

He hummed in appreciation, almost in response to her internal monologue. “That’s adorable. I’m glad you treated yourself, sweetheart.”

Heat warmed her cheeks as she pushed her new nails through Erik’s hair, skimming his scalp. Thick and soft, silky against her fingers, Christine dragged her nails down to the back of his neck, scratching lightly. It was so easy to relax into his presence, the weight of him against her, the quiet attention he paid her.

Safe and secure.

“Erik?” she asked suddenly, realizing the image in her head was possibly inaccurate. “Is-is your hair dark? Or is it blonde, or re--”

“It’s dark.”

His quiet confirmation was uttered in a low voice, a resonant rumble of thunder in the distance. Christine realized it was the first time he had ever confirmed anything about his physical appearance, and the divulgence thrilled her. 

All of their sexual play, over the last several months, almost exclusively consisted of Erik describing things he would do to  _ her. _ They would set the stage together, and she would fill in the details. 

He knew her hair was a honey blonde, knew her curls prevented her from being able to get one of the trendy styles she coveted. He knew her body, knew her cup size and shoe size; had described the weight and feel of her breasts in his hands, how soft her skin was as he kissed his way down her body, the taste of her when he delved his tongue between her thighs.

He knew her eye color, that she didn't like her pronounced chin, that she thought her upturned nose was too small for her face...Erik had managed to cobble together a reasonably defined picture of her throughout the summer, but all she knew about him was that he was an insomniac musician.

_ An insomniac musician with dark hair.  _

It was barely anything, she knew, was barely anything at all, but it was  _ real _ . It was Erik, it was real, and he'd given it to her. He didn’t feel well, and he’d given her something real.

Christine kept her voice soft and soothing, despite her inner jubilation, as she described the soft glide of her fingers through his dark hair, her nails skating over his scalp to the back of his neck. She was determined to take care of him for the afternoon the way he took care of her almost every night, wanted to give him the same sense of comfort and security he provided her. When she heard a soft sigh through the phone, Christine felt her pulse quicken.

“What else did you do, princess?”

His voice was light and somewhat dreamy sounding, and she was unable to control her wide smile. He only wanted her. 

It struck Christine in that moment that the mythical dream caller she’d always been told existed, the one she’d hoped for every time her phone rang, the one who didn’t want anything more than  _ the girlfriend experience  _ had been there, on the line with her the whole time. 

_ You could be his actual girlfriend if he weren't so stubborn _ , the voice in her head hissed, but she quickly pushed it away. This moment wasn’t about her. 

She continued to talk in a light, soothing tone, rasping her nails over his neck and around to his chest. In her mind’s eyes, he wore a button down shirt in a dark color, his eyes closed and head tipped back. There was a small smile on his handsome mouth as he enjoyed her ministrations. 

When her nails dragged over the front of his shirt, a throaty growl vibrated in her ear. A corresponding pulse echoing between her thighs and Christine squirmed.  _ He’s enjoying this  _ **_very_ ** _ much.  _ She wondered what other information he would divulge to her.

The top button of his shirt was unfastened, then a second and a third. Her palm was cool against his heated skin, her touch gentle. Christine took her time gently stroking his throat, the home of that magical larynx. The skin was delicate and pale--another fact he confirmed for her--and she felt his throat bob under her gentle touch before her fingers slipped down his chest. 

Erik’s breath was ragged in her ear as her fingertips caressed over his sternum, shuddering as she breathed into his neck, his heartbeat racing beneath her hand.

“Is there hair here or--”

“Not much,” he interrupted her. Erik suddenly sounded as though he’d been running: strained and slightly out of breath.  _ Interesting _ . It was not a reaction he'd displayed previously, when he controlled their interactions, she considered.

“There's a scar...a long scar. From my neck down to my ribs, over the right side of my chest.”

Her fingertips traced the edge of the scar, circling lightly over his side. Christine felt his lungs expand sharply, heard him draw in a shuddering breath, trembling beneath her.

“Poor baby,” she murmured, pressing her lips to the jagged white line running down his warm skin. Small, soft kisses across his chest and the slight dusting of dark hair there, following the line of the scar to his sharp clavicle, pausing only when she reached the hollow of his throat. Christine let her lips linger at his pulse before continuing.

“Tall and thin? Or short and stocky?”

The throaty laugh he huffed out was an interruption to his heavy breaths and Christine let her hand drift back to the buttons on his shirt, finishing their unfastening.

“Tall. Very tall, very thin.”

It was her turn to hum in appreciation. Her lips found the pulse in his neck, sucking lightly as her nails skimmed his flat stomach. The buckle on his belt didn't yield as easily as the shirt buttons, but she managed it eventually, the ease in which his jeans unbuttoned more than making up for it.

Christine had been doing this job for months; she knew when the John on the phone was pleased with the call, knew when she was losing them. Subtle cues in their breathing, the rustle of movement she was able to discern through the line. She didn’t need to be able to see him to know that Erik was extremely aroused, as her fingertips traced down the dark line of hair that disappeared beneath the open jeans...his heavy breaths and the small groans that emitted from his throat were evidence aplenty. 

“Boxers or tighty whities?”

She giggled, an echo of his strangled laugh, a laugh that broke off on a hiss as she palmed over the thin boxer briefs and the thick bulge they encased. Back and forth her hand moved over the shape of him, describing her tempo and what she felt, the way she squeezed gently at the base and let the heel of her hand press into the tip.

Erik didn’t like the normal dirty talk, she reminded herself, didn’t like for her to be anyone but Christine when their extensions connected. She didn’t need to do anything more than tell him about her day in between her soft voice describing exactly what she was doing to him as they talked. 

Christine’s head spun with the  _ power _ she felt thrumming through her, as he let her describe her rhythmic rubbing of his clothed erection.

“Big hands and feet?” She laughed again at his confirmation, hearing him grunt when her hand at last moved beneath the soft cotton waistband. “Mmm, I thought so.”

She described the shade of lipstick she’d applied at the Bloomingdale’s counter as her hand stroked him, feeling him alive and hot against her palm, spreading the moisture that leaked from the tip. She heard his breath catch as her hand pumped, speeding her movements, describing the twist she added as she moved over the head. 

She heard the moment when his breath quickened, felt the clenching of his stomach muscles as she brought him to release. Hot and throbbing in her hand, Christine hummed against his neck as he groaned, spilling over his taut stomach. The deep noise that emitted from his throat as he came had the shape of her name, and Christine was certain she’d never heard anything more erotic in her entire life. Her hand continued to stroke him until she heard a deep sigh: an indication that his orgasm was complete.

“Mmmm,” she hummed happily, listening to his breath slow in her ear. “Very nice. Now we can rest, you should try taking a nap.”

A deep shuddering breath could be heard through the line and Christine imagined him flushed pink, hurriedly cleaning himself off, tucking his softened member away.

“Ch-Christine…”

“Shhh.” She quickly cut off his broken, guilty whisper. “Hush now. We’re nice and relaxed, and you need to rest and get your strength back.” 

Christine closed her eyes, pulling his head to her breast. He murmured her name again softly as she pressed her lips to his temple, wrapping her arms around him as securely as he’d done to her for weeks.

Safe and secure.

Minutes ticked by, and soon nearly half an hour had passed in silence. With her eyes closed, she could feel the weight of him in her arms, leaning against her. She felt, for the first time in she couldn't remember how long, completely at peace, listening to the sound of his breath in her ear, knowing he could hear her as well. 

“What color are your eyes?”

Her voice came out as a whisper, not wanting to disrupt the tranquility of his rest. A long moment passed, and Christine considered that he'd already given her all he was prepared to.

“Hazel. More gold than green.”

A shiver undulated through her at the huskiness of his tone, and she wondered if he was able to feel it.

“Square jaw? Dimpled chin?”

“No.” Erik's voice had trailed to a whisper, and she tightened her grip on him, fisting a hand in the material of his shirt, willing him to not slip away from her. “Pointed chin. High cheekbones.”

“Strong Roman nose? Or a cute little button?”

Another long, weighted pause and Christine found herself holding her breath.

“That's very important, isn't it,” he murmured, and the mournful sadness in his dulcet tone tightened her lungs. He phrased it as a statement rather than a question, and she vehemently shook her head against the cordless receiver.

“No, it's not...of course it's not. Who cares about a silly nose?”

When Erik spoke again, his voice had once again trailed to a near whisper.

“You'd be surprised.”

His breath vanished from her ear. Tears pricked her eyes at the thought of him pulling the phone away, putting distance between himself and her own shuddering breath. Christine struggled mightily to hold back the sob that was suddenly brewing in her chest, clawing at the pillow in her arms that was not him, that had never been him.

When he returned, his voice was soft; a beguiling note of control sending a ripple up her spine. The uncharacteristic vulnerability he'd displayed was gone,  _ Erik _ was gone, her maestro having taken his place.

“Have you been given an appointment time for the new training yet?”

Christine blinked. The pivot to discussing work was not one she'd anticipated. If he wanted to pretend that whatever had just happened...didn’t, that was fine, she decided. She had become quite good at pretending, after all.

“Yes,” she rasped before clearing her throat. “Yes, on Monday. They said the new process will explained step-by-step.”

The block format went into effect the following week, and she was more than just a bit nervous for it. For months she’d been perfecting the fine art of keeping her callers on the phone, knew how to extend their fantasies, preventing them from coming too soon and ending the call. The block format changed everything. Callers would now prepay for pre-set increments of time, and it would be her job to make them orgasm as quickly as possible, getting them off the line in less time that they’d paid for, freeing herself to take the next caller.

”I’m worried I won’t do well with it...oh! I didn’t even tell you why I was having lunch with my friend in the first place. Meg, that’s Renee’s daughter? She said the office was hacked! Right before the big security update. Isn’t that crazy?!”

Several beats of silence followed before he spoke again, his plush voice slow and measured.

“Well, it was only a matter of time...did she say anything else?”

“Not really,” Christine sighed. She’d closed her eyes once more, pressing her nose into his hair and breathing deeply. “Only that they’re combing through everything with a fine tooth comb now, payroll and call logs. The personnel files weren’t taken, that’s all I care about. Who cares if some bigwig gets blackmailed for calling a sex line? I only wish I could take a cut.”

Christine hesitated, wondering if she should tell Erik about the payroll discrepancies in her favor. She was worried about having to potentially repay the money she’d been overpaid, but didn’t want to sound like she was a pathetic charity case.  _ He already knows you’re struggling for money, you don’t need to compound it, stupid. _ Before she could gather her courage enough to tell him, his dark laughter interrupted her thoughts. Warm and rumbling, it took him several minutes to stop laughing at her words.

“Well I  _ don’t _ care,” she mumbled, cheeks heating.

“Christine, how are you even real?” he chortled. “You're fantasy made flesh, I swear to God...ah well. All good things must come to an end, I suppose. We had a good run...what are you doing with the rest of your afternoon, angel?”

Her stomach swooped at his words. She had no idea what he was talking about, but his flattery never failed to make her smile.

“Laundry, nothing exciting. Oh, and I want to go downstairs for lunch. The ladies down there always know what’s going on, and there was some big disturbance up the street this morning. I want to find out what happened.”

Another heavy, pregnant pause followed, and Christine thought she heard Erik mutter something under his breath. 

“Well...just be careful, angel. Go do your laundry, make sure you lock the door when you go out.”

“I will,” she assured him with a smile. “You go take a nap. Work can wait, mister. Capisce?”

His dark chuckle was a plume of smoke, cloying at her sides, and she arched against it. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll call you tonight before bed, okay sweetheart?”

.

.

If it hadn’t been garbage day, if the department of sanitation’s trucks hadn’t been rumbling down the street early that morning, emptying dumpsters every fifty feet or so, it would have been a week before the body would have been found, if it would have been discovered at all, or so she’d been told.

Christine had learned years ago that if she wanted to know what was happening in her neighborhood, she should not waste her money on newspapers. A trip downstairs to the Sokoloff’s counter to chat with the old women who gathered there to play Mahjong in the afternoons would yield her anything she needed to know and more.

“Folded up like a pizza box, slipped in neat as you please.” 

“A piano wire! Who carries around piano wire, I ask you? Feh!”

“Someone up to no good, that's who. What is this neighborhood coming to?”

Christine strained to listen to the snippets of conversation taking place at the round table by the window as she ordered her lunch at the counter. She needn’t have worried about straining, she realized, for as soon as she turned, one of the women around the table caught sight of her and waved her over.

“Christine dear, you’ve heard about this mishegas last night? This neighborhood, I don't know what to say. So safe it used to be!”

She hid a smile as she perched on a chair at the edge of the circle with her chicken salad. Her neighbor, Mrs. Blumenthal, was never at a loss for what to say, despite her frequent claims to the contrary. The older woman was shaking her head with pursed lips as Christine leaned in closer. A she did so, the women around the table did as well, like a cluster of seers over an oracle, and she knew she’d done right by not wasting money on a newspaper.

“A man was murdered last night, right there in the alley behind Anafrey’s! Strangled! Ida Griegs, she lives there in that building you know, she said there was a problem attaching the dumpster, and the workman had to get out of the truck, otherwise no one would have been the wiser. Who knows how long he might have sat there if this wasn’t collection day?!”

“Was he mugged?” Christine asked, feeling chilled at the thought of something like that happening so close to where she lived, just beyond her little window! She remembered thinking that morning, as the shrill sirens woke her, that she passed that alley regularly on her way to the subway. 

The thought of some menacing figure looming in the shadows of the alley would make her heart thump double time the next time she needed to pass, she knew. 

“That’s the thing, dear,” another of the ladies whispered conspiratorially. “His wallet was still in his pocket. It doesn’t look like a robbery.”

“You mark my words,” piped up another voice, her finger raised imperiously. Mrs. Reubens, who always made sure to bring Christine a plate every time she baked. “There’s going to be things that come out about this alter noyef in the dumpster. I don’t want to see anyone dead, but good people? Don’t wind up in murdered in alleys.”

“You be careful out there, Christine,” Mrs. Blumenthal urged her as she pushed her chair back. “I worry about you, meydl, all alone out there. You make sure you lock your windows every night!”

“I do,” Christine assured her, rising. “I talk to my friend every night before bed and he reminds me.”

“That’s a good friend,” Mrs. Blumenthal said seriously, as Christine swung her crocheted hobo bag over her shoulder. “That’s the kind of friend you marry.”

.

.

It had been a slow night. 

By the time she got ready for bed, Christine realized she’d only taken a handful of calls for the evening, and truth be told, she was glad. The image of the man’s face on the news still floated behind her eyes, still unable to place how exactly she knew him.

“Joseph Bouquet, age fifty six, was found murdered early this morning in a midtown neighborhood on Manhattan’s west side.”

A photo of the man had appeared on her small television screen, and Christine’s blood had run cold.  _ You know this guy _ . The man’s face was familiar to her, she knew him...she just wasn’t sure how. The reporter droned on. Snippets of the man’s polished voice danced around what the ladies downstairs had said that afternoon in her mind, as she stared at the picture of the dead man.

“Recently released from Five Points,”... _ this alter noyef in the dumpster _ …”Bouquet had previously been convicted of several counts of aggravated rape and assault”... _ good people? Don’t wind up in murdered in alleys _ …. “Police have no leads and are asking for any witnesses to please…”

This man was a convicted rapist, had served hard time for his crimes, and he was someone she  _ knew.  _ Christine shivered at the thought. All of Erik’s lectures about not ignoring her instincts seemed prescient in light of this troubling revelation.

The phone’s shrill ring startled her from her reverie, forcing her to attention. Coy and practiced, she’d answered the phone, flicking off the television, expecting Bud’s weekly Wednesday call.

She was just leaving the bathroom after having brushed her teeth, hours later, when the phone rang for the final time.

“Are you done for the night?” he purred into her ear after she’d answered. 

Christine smiled, feeling her stomach tighten. Their afternoon call had left her with an unfulfilled tingle between her thighs, and she’d already been contemplating putting the cheap vibrator she’d purchased at one of Times Square’s remaining seedy sex shops to use that night. There a definite note of seduction in Erik’s dark voice, and after the thrill of being in control over the direction that afternoon, she wouldn't say no if he wanted to play for a bit before bed. 

It was not their typical routine. Night time was for comfort, was soothing voices and strong arms, chasing away nightmares and isolation. Their fantasies were built in the daytime, after her lessons. Engaging in sex play at night felt... _ normal _ , her mind supplied, and Christine felt a delicious tug in her core at the thought. Climbing into bed at the end of a long day to have sex with her boyfriend felt practically pedestrian, and the banality of it thrilled her.

“Hmmm...where are we tonight?” she asked coquettishly, wondering what he’d pick for them. Tucked away corridors in city landmarks, a dressing room at the Met, the rose walk at the botanical gardens...the fantasy world they shared had been rich and varied over the past several months.

“There. Your bedroom.”

His voice had softened, softly kissing at her neck, and her lungs seized. Her bedroom,  _ Christine’s _ bedroom was a far cry from Angel’s luxury bathroom, or Erik’s fantasy dressing room for her with the giant mirror.

The pale blue and white of her bedroom was described in detail, the soft quilt on her bed, the color of her sheets. She had a small shelf near her closet that housed the tiny animal collection of her childhood, and he wanted to hear about each one and its significance to her. The picture on her dresser of her and her father, taken at her spring choir recital her freshman year in undergrad sat in a frame beside a similar picture of the two of them when Christine was very young. The tatty little rug on the floor, the clothes she had hanging on the back of the door, Erik wanted to hear about it all.

When she pressed against him in  _ her _ bed,  _ Christine’s _ bed, all of their fantasy play seemed like second rate make-believe.  _ He _ was real,  _ Erik _ was real...tall and slim, with dark hair and eyes the color of buckwheat honey, the same as his rich, enveloping voice. When she shook apart in his arms, Christine felt like she was falling from some great, towering height, and only the weight of him against her could break her fall. 

Afterwards, her eyes drifted shut, her lips finding the scar across his chest once as he hummed into her hair.

“Your audition is coming right up,” he murmured, his voice a comforting spill of dark cashmere, which she snuggled into. “You need to make sure you’re getting plenty of rest. I want to hear the whole run through this week.”

“I need to figure out what to wear,” she fretted, tucking her head into the crook of his neck. “Maybe I can borrow something from Meg, she has better clothes…”

“It doesn’t matter,” he breathed into her hair. “You’re so beautiful. Your voice is all they’ll care about, once they hear you sing, nothing else will matter...you’ll be going back to school and you can put all of this behind you soon.”

The air in her lungs vanished, and Christine felt as though she were locked in a vice. Did he mean she would be putting  _ him _ behind along with the job? Surely he had to know she’d be unable, unwilling to do so. Mrs. Blumenthal’s parting words drifted back to her...

And truth be told, she had considered keeping the work, to have a way to earn money on weekends. She’d need to scale back at the bistro, after all, if not quit entirely...she didn’t want to be as destitute as she’d been when she’d first started the phone gig.

She didn’t know how to address his words, didn’t know what to say to correct him. Erik had given her more personal information in that day than he had since they’d begun their odd relationship, and she didn’t want to say something that would make him regret it.

“Tomorrow we’re in your room,” she blurted at last, holding tight to the surety his voice provided. “I want to hear all about your room.”

She felt liquefied by his dark chuckle, elated at his rumble of “Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

Christine pushed his words about “putting it all behind her” away. They could address that another time, when things weren’t as soft and comfortable as they were just then. 

“Someone was murdered right outside my apartment,” she mumbled, settling against him once more. “Remember I told you earlier that something had happening up the block? Some guy was strangled and put in the dumpster. I saw his face on the news, and he looks so familiar to me, isn’t that crazy? I know that I know him from somewhere, I just can’t think of how...the news said he was a convicted rapist.”

She could hear music drifting down from the apartment above her in the silence that followed her disclosure, and wondered if she would be the girl in the song by the end of the summer, if she “put this all behind her.” 

_ It's just another sad love song _

_ Rackin' my brain like crazy _

“Why do you think he looks familiar, princess?” His voice interrupted the chorus, and she let out a frustrated breath.

“I don’t know, that’s the thing. I can’t place where I’ve seen him, I just know that I have...but it’s scary to think that someone was murdered right there, just outside my building.”

“I’m fairly certain the recidivism rates on murder are much lower than sexual assault, so maybe they did your neighborhood a favor.” Erik’s voice was light, but Christine detected an edge there.

_ Be it fast or slow _

_ It doesn't let go _

_ Or shake me _

_ And it's all because of you _

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. It creeps me out thinking I could have seen him every day and he was actually some skeevy predator.”

The bass line of the drifting music was making the edges of the world feel fuzzy, and she realized how close she was to drifting off.

“It’s late, sweetheart. You have work tomorrow.”

“I know,” she murmured, snuggling into his side. Safe and secure. “I hope you’re feeling better. It-it was a nice day.”

“It was,” he agreed, tightening his arms around her. “Thank you for taking such good care of me.”

She smiled against him, her eyes already shut. Sleep slowly clouded her mind as his lips gently brushed against her forehead. “Goodnight, Erik.”  _ I love you. _

She heard him whisper his customary  _ sweet dreams _ into her hair before he began to hum her lullaby, rocking her gently on the tide he created. 

Christine floated, suspended between sleep and lucidity for several long moments. The music continued from upstairs, providing an odd counterpoint to Erik’s gentle humming. The non-stop traffic outside was white noise, adding to her sense of jumbled surroundings. The cordless was wedged against her pillow, not quite against her ear anymore, making Erik’s voice seem further and further away. 

She wouldn’t know in the morning if she’d already been dreaming, and would assume she had been. There was too much in the background, his voice and the music upstairs and the honking of horns and traffic slurring into an indistinct susurration as she drifted to sleep in his arms.

Safe and secure.

_ It's just another sad love song _

_ Rackin' my brain _

“I love you, Christine.” 


	6. Chapter 6

The phone was a sharp clang at her ear, jolting her awake.

Christine wasn’t sure when she’d nodded off, but the light coming through her window was dim, indicating that it was late evening already. 

_ You fell asleep after the guy who wanted you to be his sister-in-law _ , she reminded herself, having acted out an illicit family barbecue, where she was taken roughly against a picnic table, with the caller’s “brother” just a few feet away. 

The man had spent more time bossily directing her on his sister-in-law’s voice and mannerisms than he had in achieving his climax, and Christine had felt as though she’d spent the thirty minute call in a drama club boot camp.

Straightening up from the arm of the sofa she quickly cleared her throat and answered in her practiced, purring hello.

“Christine?” 

Meg was always a purveyor of over the top dramatics, was always full of harrowing tales about rude directors and overbooked nail appointments, but just then her voice held an unusual note of hysteria, and Christine sat up sharply, her brow furrowing.

“Meg? What’s wrong?”

Through the line, she was able to hear a door click shut and a sudden whirring noise.  _ The bathroom at the office, with the automatic fan _ , she thought immediately. Erik would have been proud of her deduction skills, for listening to the aural clues across extensions, she thought with a small, satisfied smile. When Meg spoke again, her voice was high and tight, but Christine could tell she was making an effort to speak quietly.

“Oh my God, Christine, things are such a fucking mess here! I can seriously not take one more person wigging out on me! My mom is going crazy and the cops keep coming around...things are  _ so _ messed up! Chris...this is super serious, I need you to be honest with me...how do you know Erik Sloane?”

.

.

“This is sounding very goth industrial. I didn’t peg you as such a minimalist,” she laughed into the phone, feeling her cheeks heat as Erik’s dark chuckle joined her.

He’d just described his bedroom for her, as promised, and the picture he painted was stark and empty. Exposed grey cinder block walls, black bedclothes on a platform bed. A single high dresser, also black. Nothing on the walls, no clutter on the dresser, nothing that gave her any idea of who he was and the life he lived. 

“You’re the one who wanted to hear about the bedroom, angel. I don’t spend much time here.”

Christine felt her stomach swoop at his words. She already knew he slept very little, but the implication that he wasn’t entertaining other women in his bed caused a thrill of happiness to move through her.

“This isn't fair,” she whined with another small laugh. “You got to hear about my stuffed animals and my dirty laundry and all I get is a bed?”

“Why do we need more than a bed, Christine?” 

His voice was a slick purr; a sensuous slide of black silk caressing her back and legs, drawing her nearer. 

This time, the low swooping sensation in her stomach was joined by a tingle between her thighs, a heady rush of anticipation and desire flushing through her. Erik’s voice curled and undulated around her neck, wrapping her in his cocoon of silken seduction. 

The intimacy of this—telling him about her room, her things, having him do the same—was a leap beyond the games they’d been playing for months, and it made her head spin to think how dramatically their relationship had progressed in such a short space of time. Several months of talking, of telling him about her days, of singing for him, of sexual fantasies mutually explored, yet he had never seemed more  _ real _ to her than he had in the past twenty four hours. 

“Oh no, you don’t!” she countered when he began to start them off, tugging her to the bed. The way he’d enjoyed having her take care of him was still fresh in her mind, his small groans and heaving breaths, and Christine wasn’t willing to relinquish control to him that easily. “You got to be in charge last night,  _ I’m _ in charge tonight. I’m the guest.”

“Is that so? And just who said you get to make the rules, princess?”

Amusement colored his voice, and if she closed her eyes, Christine could practically see the smile on his face.  _ Long jaw, high cheekbones. A wide mouth, thin lips. A pointed chin. Dark hair falling into hazel eyes. _

He wasn’t what one would consider classically handsome, she decided, didn’t have Raoul’s model good looks...but he was  _ interesting _ . His eyes were intelligent and serious, and he had a devilish smile that made her breath catch in her throat and her heart beat in triple time.

He didn't stand out in a crowd, but then again, neither did she.

Christine felt her heart hammering in her chest at just the thought, creating a picture of him in her mind. She’d felt like an imposter that night when she’d slipped out of Raoul’s fancy apartment, had known that a relationship with him would have meant pretending all the time, lying about herself and always feeling on the clock...but she could imagine herself in  _ this _ man's arms, where he would take care of her, where she was allowed to just be Christine.

Safe and secure.

“I get to make the rules because I’m the lady, and you like it that way.”

When he laughed, amber gold melting over her, her skin prickled at how different it was from the low laugh she’d grown accustomed to--still deep and rich, but absent of the deliberate seduction, the calculated purr.  _ Erik’s _ laugh, she realized. Real. 

She let him lead her to the bed, described for him the Roxette concert tank that she wore, a show she had attended with Meg two years earlier, before he tugged it over her head. Cool lips moved over her collarbone, sucking lightly at the tender skin of her neck, trailing downwards as she gently gripped a handful of his soft, dark hair. 

When his mouth met the edge of her bra—pink trimmed in mint green lace, she confirmed for him—his thumbs hooked under the elastic waistband of her soccer shorts and panties, sliding them down her hips.

It was an unfamiliar sensation, describing her own wardrobe for him, and not Angel’s fantasy lingerie. 

When his hands reached around her, fingertips dragging over her skin to unclasp the bra, she stopped him. 

“Not so fast, mister! I’m in charge, remember?”

Erik's deep chuckle buzzed at her ear once more as she shifted to straddle his waist.

He confirmed a plain black t-shirt that she pushed up his body slowly, her mouth following the line of the jagged white scar up to his collarbone. Her fingers undid the silver grommeted belt he described, and unzipped the black jeans—”Oh no, you really are goth industrial!” she’d giggled—until he was nearly bare beneath her. Her head spun, intoxicated from the sound of his rough laughter scraping against hers.

_ We’re real together, _ Christine reminded herself. The distance between them meant nothing when they were together. When he made a move to change their position, describing shifting above her, she prevented him, keeping him pinned to the mattress. 

“I said not so fast! I just want to give you a little kiss first...okay?”

Moving her palm over the front of the boxer briefs, she described her hand, cupping and squeezing the growing bulge there as she’d done the afternoon before. When a low groan sounded in her ear, Christine cooed in satisfaction, before sliding the thin cotton down his long legs. 

Christine considered—as she described taking his hardened length into her mouth, in between telling him about the dress she’d purchased at the beginning of the summer, with the box pleats and belled sleeves; described her tongue sliding over and around the underside of his shiny, pink head, the dress’ french blue shade that brought out her eyes and the pink in her cheeks, how it might be good enough for her audition after all, right before her lips puckered and she sucked him slowly—that in all the times she’d narrated this act, she’d never felt such a persistent ache between her thighs. 

Erik didn’t like dirty talk, but he liked hearing about her. 

Tipping her head back to rest against the headboard, her hand found its way to that place where she ached for him, that screamed for attention, and pressed into her own warmth. 

Her lips tightened, her head bobbed, and her fingers moved rhythmically against herself as she listened to Erik pant through the phone. When her mouth released him with a gasp, the room spun. 

_ Power _

Christine was unsure of why she’d not tried to be in control during any of the previous months of play, as he clearly didn't mind and they both obviously liked it. 

“On my knees?” she asked, thinking of the scene he’d create in that fantasy dressing room, the one with the big mirror. She would lean forward on the little dressing table, braced on her elbows as he took her from behind, holding her performance dress or costume up as he gripped her hips and bade her to sing for him. 

“No..no, just like this, on top of me."

His voice was a deep rasp, ragged from the illusion of oral attention she’d created, warming her core as he gripped her hips.

"Hmm...if I’m in charge then  _ I _ get to pick,” she asserted, smiling when he laughed again, that real laugh,  _ Erik’s _ laugh.

“You’re right sweetheart...whatever you want, you make the rules.”

The idea of being on top of him, she realized belatedly, was all too appealing. They’d never played in that position, and the intimacy of it—straddling his narrow hips while she rolled against him, his hands caressing her as she moved, finding ecstasy together—was too great to pass up. 

Sitting on his thighs, Christine led his hands to her breasts, allowed him to unclasp her bra at last, arching against his touch as he described their weight in his palms, the pebbled nipples he rolled between thumbs and forefingers.

The firm arm of her reading pillow provided enough friction between her legs when she straddled it, and when she leaned forward on its back, she was able to pretend it was his chest. 

Christine rocked herself rhythmically against him, her voice gradually giving way from describing her movements as she rode him, to breathy moans as she moved closer to her peak, fueled on by the deep groans on the other end of the phone line. Her name on his lips, mouthed repeatedly as they moved against each other, made her back arch in delight.

She reached her climax first, gasping out his name as his hands moved over her breasts, across her thighs, fisting in her hair. She was able to feel him, to smell him, so very real, still moving against her as she shuddered; was able to feel his heartbeat throbbing against her lips as she kissed his throat, her body pulsing in pleasure. 

For the first time, he let her hear him,  _ really _ let her hear him as he finished: his voice a deep, guttural sound, moaning her name,  _ Christine’s _ name as he climaxed. Over and over, her name from his lips:  _ Christine, Christine _ .

It was everything she wanted.

His arms were a secure weight around her when she tucked into his side afterwards, resting her head against his chest. He was warm, he was real, and he was right there, drawing the black comforter over her as she drifted to sleep in his bed, strong arms settling around her.

Safe and secure.

_ I love you, Christine _ .

She wasn't sure where the words had come from, why they surfaced in her mind, but her face heated at her dream of him ever saying such a thing to her. 

“Tomorrow I want to see your kitchen.”

His voice was a low, hypnotic purr in her ear, making her eyelashes flutter open. The low drone of a siren and the honking of horns suddenly over took the hazy dreaminess in which she’d been so contentedly cocooned, pulling her lips into a frown. The pale blue and white of her bedroom was almost a shock, immersed in the fantasy as she was. 

Christine tried not to notice that the pillow she hugged didn’t have the sharp planes and angles of a long, slender body, or that the smell of fried onions from Sokoloff’s was drifting upstairs to her dark, empty apartment.

“My kitchen,” she agreed. “Then we’re back at your place.” 

His answering chuckle was low, rumbling against her hair. “That’s right. But you know what that means, princess...tomorrow, I’m in charge.”

.

.

A weight, heavy and cold, descended on her stomach, and Christine gripped the edge of her sofa with a convulsive hand. She didn’t know what had happened, or why her name was suddenly being connected with Erik’s, but whatever it was, she could tell from Meg’s voice that it wasn’t good. She couldn't give voice to the how or why, but she felt with absolute, gut-wrenching certainty that allowing anyone from the service to find out about her relationship with him would be calamitous.

_ Play dumb, don’t give her anything _ .

“Christine!?”

“I’m here, I’m trying to think!” she chirped with a forced laugh. “Are you talking about that Eric guy from the drama department? The one Maddie dated?”  _ Don’t freak out, you’re an actress. You sell lies every day. _

“What? No! No...Christine, the guy from the service. How exactly do you know him?”

_ Let them lead you to what the fantasy needs to be. _

Erik’s words from their very first phone call, the night she’d dialed his extension from her tub, advice she’d repeated to herself over and over in the beginning came back to her then. She would treat this like any other call, would wait until the person on the other end of the phone led her to what she needed to say.

“Meg, you’re the only person from the service I know. What are you talking about?”

“Well, that’s not what the phone records show,” Meg gritted out in a tight voice. “The records show over a dozen calls to his extension from the switchboard line, which was dialed from  _ your _ number. So maybe try again...how do you know him, Chrissy?”

Christine carefully twisted the mouthpiece away from her face, as she’d done dozens of times before, so that Meg would not hear her slow exhalation. It was true, she had called Erik’s extension in the beginning. It wasn’t until she’d told him about Friday Night Guy that he’d begun calling her, and that had been their routine for nearly the entire summer. She hadn’t dialed him through the switchboard line in months, and she’d only ever been able to call him in the first place because she’d been provided with his extension.  _ Plausible deniability, Christine. It’s good enough. _

“I called the extensions,” she began slowly, “that you gave me, Meggie. I have no idea who those people are. Yes, I talked to a man a few times, but I don’t know who he is. You’re the one who gave me his extension. Remember? You gave me the switchboard line and told me to call some top earners for pointers.”

The whir of the bathroom’s fan sounded in her ear, punctuated by Meg’s uneven breaths, and Christine felt a pang of guilt. She didn’t want to lie to her friend. She didn’t want to lie, but somewhere along the course of the summer, she’d learned a little bit of self-preservation.

“Oh, fuck me.” Meg’s voice was a hoarse whisper of dawning realization, and Christine slumped back into the sofa in relief. “I totally forgot about that. Oh my God, Chris!” 

A noisy exhalation through the line gave way to high, relieved laughter. “You’re right! I forgot that I’d given you those extensions...Oh my God, you’re right! I knew you couldn’t be involved in this!”

Christine was able to hear Meg’s manic laughter echoing off the walls in the small office bathroom, and felt her stomach clench at her friend’s words.

“In-Involved in what, Meg? What did you think--”

“It’s nothing, it’s fine. You’re right, I gave you those numbers!” She laughed again as Christine felt her skin crawl. “It’s fine, Chris--you’re in the clear!”

“No, it’s  _ not _ fine! You call and scare me half to death and now you're not going to tell me why? You gave me someone’s full name, Meg, our names are supposed to be confidential! Did you give this guy  _ my _ name?!”

The thought thrilled her. If they’d already called to grill him the same way, if Erik had been given  _ her _ full name then he’d be able to find her. He’d be able to find her apartment, find  _ her _ ! He’d be able to come upstairs with her, slip beneath her sheets and pin her beneath the weight of his body, be able to hold her in his strong arms through the night.

Her hopes were dashed by Meg’s next words.

“No, of course not! He’s so terrible...no, I’d never...he’s gone anyways. Oh my God, Christine, you can’t even imagine what a fucking shitshow everything is right now!”

“Well,” she choked in a shaking voice, sitting up from where she’d been slumped on her sofa, “you’d better start talking. What the fuck is going on, and what is it that you thought I was involved in?”

.

.

The contents of her refrigerator had fascinated him. 

_ Why do you have three different kinds of cottage cheese? Who even likes cottage cheese? What the hell is a Dunkaroo, Christine? Wait, how much sugar is in a Snapple? _

“Can we make dinner together?” she’d asked, blushing as soon as the words were out of her mouth.  _ So stupid, Christine. He wants to get off and then go back to work…  _

The embarrassed flush heated to besotted warmth when he’d enthusiastically agreed. 

He’d wanted to pick what she cooked, based on the meager contents of her fridge and freezer, wanted to hear painstaking details of each step of the preparation. She had laughed that he was acting like she was some sort of fancy gourmet, had beamed when he’d responded that he didn’t cook at all, so comparatively, she was.

_ You’ll cook for him all the time once you’re together, you can teach him to make easy things, the way daddy taught you.  _

The image she instantly conjured—standing side by side in her small kitchen, working in in tandem—was cozy and domestic and  _ normal _ . They’d move around each other in a well-practiced choreography of idyllic togetherness, stealing kisses while their home-cooked masterpieces went into the oven. Afterwards, they’d do the dishes together—she’d wash and he’d dry, before retiring together to the sofa, or to sing, or whatever it was that they did in that perfect world where seedy things like phone sex lines and murdered bodies in dumpsters didn’t exist.

_ That’s the kind of friend you marry _

After he’d listened to her make dinner, her kitchen table—small and scuffed and utterly ordinary—had been described in detail for him, before he’d set her upon it, dropping to his knees before her. Her purple bikinis had been discarded earlier, at his request, and now he kissed his way up her thighs, describing each stroke of his tongue as he worked her slick core, making her head drop back with a soft moan.

It hadn’t occurred to her until hours later that Friday Night Guy hadn’t called, or else, she’d already been on the phone with Erik when he’d tried to do so. 

_ Good _ , she’d thought, turning into the softness of her pillow. It had been a  _ wonderful _ night, she reminded herself, drifting to sleep with that domestic little tableau playing out behind her eyes.

.

.

The next morning, she raced out the door to the subway, anxious to attend the meeting where she’d learn the status of the city’s lawsuit. The platform was crowded, and Christine found herself wedged between a harried-looking woman attempting to wrangle a squalling baby in a stroller, and a smartly dressed young man who gave her a wide smile. 

Although he wore jeans, the suit jacket and wide tie the young man wore reminded her too much of Raoul. His highlighted hair was a touch to stripey, the shiny brass fixtures on his bag announcing his importance to passersby, and Christine edged backwards until she was closer to a much more appealing shape in the crowd. 

_ This _ man was tall and lanky, his bottle-black hair falling into his face. There were a number of superfluous seeming straps on his pants, and the band tee he wore wasn’t one that she recognized, but Christine gazed up besottedly. 

_ This could be him _ . He could be anyone in the crowd, she considered, feeling a blush climbing up her neck...until the man spoke, and the spell was broken.

Erik’s voice was singular, and she would know it anywhere.

She pushed back through the crowd as the train arrived, jostled along in the sea of people until the door closed and she was whisked away.

That night, Erik’s empty, sterile kitchen had yielded her nothing but an unapologetic laugh for her poor choice in exploration and a deep pounding against the countertop, her recently purchased Eager Beaver vibrator standing in for the absence of his body moving within her, and she’d sighed into his embrace after a enormously satisfying climax.

“What did you do today, princess?”

His voice was a soft breath at her hair, and Christine cuddled against it, the yearning to press her nose to his neck twisting her into knots.

“They’re still haggling over the amount,” she murmured sadly, after she’d explained the nature of her trip uptown that afternoon. “They said it should all be over soon, but...they’ve said that before.”

She didn't like talking about the lawsuit, didn't like the way acknowledging it meant remembering the nature of her father’s death, the bloodied pillowcases as he coughed his life away; the endless rounds of radiation and chemotherapy, how sick it had made him. In the end, it hadn't mattered anyway: twenty years of inhaling an invisible killer at the library where he’d worked as a music archivist had already taken its toll.

“Tell me about him, sweetheart.”

Erik's voice was incredibly soft, and she could feel the ghost of his hand stroking her hair as she sniffled.

Christine felt her face crumpled as she talked, telling Erik about the music her father played, his violin, about the Sundays he spent playing at the pub, about how everyone knew they simply needed to go see “Mr. Gus” to find a piece of obscure music they were searching for.

“He loved what he did,” she hiccuped through her tears. “Even though he wasn’t playing with a big symphony somewhere, he loved what he did every day. He loved helping other people discover music, wanted everyone to love it as much as he did.”

Christine couldn't remember the last time she’d talked about her father with someone. After his death, her small handful of friends hadn’t wanted to upset her, and she’d never been especially close enough with anyone for them to ask. It hurt to remember, but speaking his memory into existence felt good, felt healthy.  _ It’s what he deserves. _

“He’d be heartbroken that I’m doing this.”

It was the first time she’d truly given voice to the thought, the first time she’d acknowledged that it would have wounded her father deeply to know that she was doing sex work, that his illness and resulting bills had forced her to sink so low.

“It’s just a job, Christine,” Erik murmured softly, and she pressed herself into his voice, desperate to feel him shift and move beneath her; pushed until the cordless was a painful pressure against her ear. “It’s just a job. How is this anymore demeaning that serving food or cleaning toilets? You get to work from the comfort of your home, you don’t have anyone looking over your shoulder, you don't have to punch a clock. You’re surviving, sweetheart. That’s all it is.”

Christine thought about telling him about the man on the subway platform that morning, or about the one on her train as she’d come home—his dark brown hair had been neatly combed over a high forehead, his nose slightly too big for his face. He’d stood a full foot over her, and she’d bit her lip coquettishly, smiling up at him with doe eyes.

She wondered if it would make him jealous, or if he’d not care, as he’d not cared about Raoul.  _ You can’t go around making cow eyes at every tall guy with dark hair in the city, stupid. _

When she fell asleep to the soothing rock of his lilting voice, the persistent ache she’d had behind her eyes since that morning’s meeting was gone. She marveled, with the tiny corner of her brain where rational thought still existed, before she was pulled under entirely, over the way fate had dropped a man who a physical embodiment of music and comfort to her into her life, the same way her father had been. 

Her angel of music, in the flesh, wherever he was.

.

.

He’d wanted to hear about her bathroom next: wanted to know what kind of shampoo she used, the brand of her satsuma body wash, had hummed in appreciation over her treasured vanilla lotion and body spray. The bullet vibe that had been purchased from a novelty shop several years earlier had turned out to be waterproof, something she was thankful for when he’d decided he wanted to have her in the tub, after hearing about the rose petal-scented bath flakes she only used on special occasions. 

“Christine, you’re always a special occasion,” he’d purred, fingertips ghosting down her sides as she filled the tub.

The exploration of  _ his _ bathroom, the following night, was the first room in his mystery apartment that provided her a glimpse of anything remotely personal, although once she’d hung up the phone, she’d stared at her ceiling in the dark, plagued by questions that seemingly had no answers.

A stainless steel straight razor, an herbaceous soap and shampoo, mouthwash, and a bottle of Sauvage, a cologne she’d never heard of, but couldn’t wait to discover during her next shopping trip with Meg. His shower had a glass door, and there was no tub.

The dark blue robe on the back of the bathroom door had made her chest tighten and twist with that familiar yearning, and a quickly assembled Sunday morning fantasy of them making breakfast together, never changing out of their robes and pajamas, snuggling on the sofa throughout the afternoon had made it hard to breathe. 

There was no mirror. 

A white pedestal sink, no countertop, his toothbrush resting along the sink’s edge, but no mirror. There had been no mirror in the bedroom either, she’d realized belatedly, staring up at her ceiling sleeplessly. The non-stop thrum of the city just outside her window seemed to be just as unable to sleep that night as she was. A car was idling at the street somewhere close by, and the music it blasted was occasionally broken up by punches of high-pitched laughter.

_ Dream lover come rescue me _

How could there not be a mirror anywhere in the apartment? Perhaps the robe had covered one on the door, and he just hadn’t mentioned it?

_ Won't you please come around _

_ 'Cause I wanna share forever with you baby _

Christine had never heard of a bathroom with no mirror; no mirrored vanity, no mirrored medicine cabinet. She couldn’t comprehend how he shaved with something as terrifying as a straight razor with no mirror, earning a light laugh in response when she voiced the thought and a nonchalant “lots of practice, princess.”

She’d drifted to sleep that night with questions swirling in her mind, frustrated with herself for having already wasted several nights learning absolutely nothing new about him, other than the fact that it would be impossible for her to put him behind her, despite what he said or thought.

.

.

By the fourth night spent “at” her apartment, Christine had caught on to what she was doing wrong. 

Erik had never talked to her from his bedroom, or from his kitchen, she’d mused,

After he’d asked to hear about her small living room, with its blue striped sofa and gingham curtains above the Sokoloff’s sign, she considered the previous several months of conversations.

He’d been on his sofa a handful of times, it was true, mostly after she'd sent him there, scolding him for working so many hours. Typically though, he would be seated at his piano, playing through a piece of music softly as she told him about her days.

The night after she’d told him about her sofa and small television, the coffee table that matched the rocking chair and the torchiere lamp behind her, rather than follow suit and ask after his own living room, she’d asked to see the room where his piano was.

Silence reigned for several moments before he’d chuckled at her request. The sound was low and slightly sinister, supremely different from his normal low chuckle; stealing around her shoulders and licking at her neck, raising gooseflesh on her arms.

“Well, well...my little kitten is learning at last.”

A shiver of nervous excitement had rippled through her, proud that she’d finally cracked the code on learning more about him, and uncertain of his reaction.

The room had been a revelation.

A drum kit in the corner, tiers of electronic keyboards, a full organ on the far wall. An acoustic guitar on a stand with an electric model on the wall right behind, a cello, a violin! She’d asked excitedly about each instrument, had squealed in wonder to learn that he did, in fact, play them all; asked where he’d learned each one, how long he’d played, on and on.

When he’d halting confessed to having spent the bulk of the previous decade and a half traveling the world, accumulating his collection of instruments, she’d been struck with wonder. 

People always acted as though New York was some magical land where everyone was glamorous and chic and interesting, she often opined privately, but those people rarely noticed that it was also cramped and dirty, noisy and expensive, and very easy to become invisible, especially if one was a mouse, like her. Trips to the Jersey shore didn't count as traveling, she thought, and the one time she’d gone apple picking with a school friend’s family in Connecticut didn't seem terribly impressive in the wake of Erik’s globetrotting.

Every answer he gritted out for her opened the door to another question, and Christine could not stop herself from pressing on. Where had he learned to play the violin, what exactly had he been doing in Amsterdam where he’d acquired the cello, who had he been with, how long he’d stayed. 

Did he have family overseas? Was he from the city, as she was? Hadn’t there been a wife or a girlfriend or a sister or a mother to worry about him, as he’d traveled far and wide? 

She tried not to let the fact that he’d grown more agitated sounding with each breathlessly asked question damper her triumph in learning about him.

His tension rolled through the phone line, and when she closed her eyes, Christine could clearly see the rigid set of his shoulders, heard the sharpness in his tone. It mattered not. Like a glutton at a feast, she gorged herself on information, each detail she learned about him fascinating her more and more.

He’d learned to play a strange stringed instrument that was near the drums when he lived in the Middle East, she learned, a tidbit she’d jumped on with the zeal of a pastor on Sunday. 

“When?! When did you live there? In what country? Why were you there?”

“I learned to play the kamancheh from an old woman in my building when I was in Iran,” he’d answered her carefully, in a spiky voice that dripped with aggravation. “Your other questions don't actually pertain to the instrument, do they sweetheart?”

Phrased as a question, but his answer had been clear--he wasn’t going to give her more than that. A tiny bubble of annoyance had formed in her chest, and Christine bade herself to breathe it away.  _ Still _ , she’d thought...hadn’t she been telling him everything he wanted to know for months? If he cared for her as he pretended, wasn’t she entitled to know something—anything!—about him?

On the other side of the room was his small recording booth— _ more of a closet, _ he’d laughed tightly—where he executed the freelance voiceover work he’d previously told her about. 

The concert grand stood in the center of the room, and in her mind’s eyes, this was where she was drawn. Drifting over to the magnificent piano, Christine had stood in its bend, jumping at his voice curling around her ear, the hairs on her neck raising when his fingertips seemed to alight on her shoulders.

“Well, princess? What do you think? Have you figured out all of my secrets now?”

Something in his tone had made her shiver, and she remembered the very first night she’d called him, when his voice had seemed to magically press her back in her bathwater, how he could make it move, take weight and shape and dimension. It was right at her neck now, nipping at her earlobe, and she’d taken a moment to steady herself, considering his words.

He clearly didn't like talking about himself, didn't like her peeling back the layers of mystery he’d cloaked himself in so successfully.  _ He doesn’t like it, but he’s doing it for you _ . The voice in her head was right, she’d reasoned, even if his disclosures throughout the night had been somewhat unwilling.

“I think...I could live a hundred years and not learn all of your secrets.”

That pitch-black laugh again, tightening her core and making her stomach flip.  _ What’s wrong with you? Do you want him, the real him? Or just the fantasy?  _ Silence ticked by for a full minute, then another, as she attempted to steady her breath again.

“What are we doing, Christine?” he’d whispered in her ear, sending a shiver through her.  _ Her _ name, from  _ his _ lips. They were real, together. Him, of course she wanted him. “You’re in charge, sweetheart. Remember?”

She laughed, light and nervous, swallowing hard, knowing he could hear it.

“I want...I want to sing. Will you sing something with me, Erik?”

He’d never sung anything for her before then, not a single note...but Christine knew, as certain as she knew her own name, that he  _ could _ sing. He instructed her with confident authority in her lessons, and her voice had never felt stronger. There was an inherent musicality to his speaking voice, and she knew it would be just as dark and seductive raised in song.

“And what should we sing, princess?” 

Still an edge there, something in his tone that was sharp and gleaming like the tip of a knife, that rose the tiny hairs at the back of her neck, and she knew if it had been anyone else on the phone, she’d be hurrying through the call, eager to disconnect.

_ You need to stop disregarding your instincts, sweetheart. _

“ _ O soave fanciulla _ ? Perhaps the  _ Liebesnacht _ from Tristan? I’m not certain I have the range for that, but you’re in charge. Macbeth? Tosca? The Pearl Fishers? Maybe something from Giovanni? I am a bit of a Don Juan, you know, with women calling all day. It’s your decision, Christine.”

His voice, his gentle, comforting,  _ beautiful _ voice had grown spikier, sharper with every word, and Christine couldn’t understand what she’d done to raise his ire, had only asked the same sorts of questions he’d asked her and didn’t understand his black mood shift...but found that she was unable to back down from the challenge in his voice.

“Well...Giovanni is p-perfect then.  _ Là ci darem _ ?”

Christine winced at the stammer in her voice, a vocal tic that had progressively dropped away through the course of the summer. She hoped the lighter musical fare would ease his agitation with her. Wagnerian passion could not be in the cards that night, and she would do well to steer clear of engaging his anger through singing Scarpia...the light Mozart would do well in defusing the situation.

Erik must have seated himself at the piano, for the next thing she heard was the short introduction from the recitative, and then his voice, starting off the duet.

_ Là ci darem la mano, _

_ Là mi dirai di sì. _

_ Vedi, non è lontano; _

_ Partiam, ben mio, da qui _

Christine staggered, unprepared.

She gripped the edge of her countertop with the hand that did not hold the phone, in an effort to hold herself up, as her senses were assaulted. 

His voice was rich and resonant, as she’d known it would be, but she hadn’t counted on the pure tone, the effortless control, and the way her body reacted to the sound of him, for the way her stomach dropped and her spine straightened, her heartbeat finding a twin pulse between her thighs. As her back arched and her toes curled, Christine wondered if he experienced the same reaction when hearing  _ her _ voice, thinking of all his silent climaxes as he made her sing for him.

_ There our hands shall join together, and you will say yes to me... _

It was a lighthearted duet that they sang, yet Christine felt as though the lyrics were speaking directly to that hidden part of her, to all of her secret fantasies of them together: a happy, normal couple...singing to her fantasies and mocking them bitterly. 

His voice was perfect for Don Giovanni, she realized—deep and sonorous, saccharine with false sweetness, a veneer of charm twisted over a corrupted core. She joined him on the next line, giving voice to Zerlina’s waffling wish to run off with a man whom she knew nothing about, leaving her boring, pedestrian life behind. The song was chosen as a safe choice, a light, easy choice...she wasn’t meant to feel that she was being purposefully led by the hand, away from all she knew, despite the lyrics beguiling Zerlina into doing exactly that.

_ Andiam, andiam, mio bene, _

_ a ristorar le pene _

_ d'un innocente amor _

Christine wondered, for a brief instant, as their voices tripped over the final lines together, if she, like Zerlina, was playing into deceitful hands, before she banished the thought from her head.

_ I am a bit of a Don Juan, you know... _

When the last notes died away, she was placed on top of the piano’s hastily dropped fallboard. 

For the first time since their very first call, his desire outran hers, the sounds of his heaving breaths and need for her bleeding through the phone line until she was swept away by the current of his hunger, by the sound of her name echoed repeatedly in her ear once more, forgetting his prickly mood, his sharp agitation with her, for the way he’d confused her heart so thoroughly with that song.

She could forgive him anything, as long as she got to hear her name from his lips.

There'd been a note of penitence in his voice, and the desperate way he'd murmured her name had made her heart twist, made her arms reach to cling to him tightly.

Afterwards, when her pulse had begun to slow, the thudding euphoria she’d felt throbbing through her receding like the tide, Christine was certain that if she kept her eyes closed, she could feel his lips gently press to her throat.

_ You’re being stupid, you’ve been stupid all night. Everything is fine, you just pushed him a little too much. He’s letting you in.  _ Shoving all of her tangled feelings over the way the night had gone away, Christine focused on the sound of his breath as his heartbeat slowed.

.

.

The sky outside her window was dark long before she’d logged back into the service for the night. 

After hanging up with Meg, Christine felt numb, unable to think or move or process anything, let alone the confusing disclosures form her friend.

Erik was a criminal. 

Did that bother her? 

She wished that she was a good enough person to be horrified, to feel disgusted with his actions, with his theft, and maybe the old Christine—the Christine who had felt guilty for a week after being overpaid by the family she babysat for in high school, who always pointed out if a cashier made a mistake in her favor and never tried to use double coupons at the grocery store—would have felt that way, but the past year had done its damndest to grind  _ that _ Christine under the heel of an uncaring world, where she was still waiting to see a penny of the settlement that was meant to compensate her for her father’s absence, as though his life had a pricetag that the city was still haggling over, leaving her destitute, completely alone and uncared for, until she’d met Erik. 

It didn’t bother her a bit.

As it was, she’d had to fight to keep from laughing when Meg outlined the depth of Erik’s scheme.

Credit card numbers stolen from the system that he’d repeatedly told her was easy to hack. A reversible autodialer that could apparently be purchased from any one of the shady little electronic stores that dotted lower Manhattan. 

He was free to work on his freelance composition and voiceover gigs at his leisure, while the autodialer called his extension, calls paid for using the pilfered credit cards. The customers whose cards had been stolen were regular callers who’d never noticed the additional charges amidst their own; callers who didn’t want to be exposed as regularly calling a sex line and refused to come forward. 

_ All good things must come to an end, I suppose. We had a good run… _

A bubble of laughter had formed in her chest as Meg ranted, thinking of Erik’s cryptic words, and she had struggled to keep it contained. 

“Wait—Meg, was he not taking any real calls at all?!”

“No, he was,” Meg admitted begrudgingly. “He was still earning a hefty chunk off legitimate calls...he only ran up like, twenty thousand a quarter on average, over a bunch of different cards, on the phony calls. Enough to be lucrative, but not enough to raise suspicion,” Meg had said.

She had huffed out an aggrieved breath before continuing, and Christine could imagine her there: perfect dark hair falling in a glossy curtain, looking like she stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine. 

She loved Meg, but it was easy to feel more than a twinge of bitterness knowing that the hours she spent listening to strangers masturbate had partially paid for her friend’s designer shoes.Twenty thousand dollars might not be much to Meg, but Christine was fairly certain her financial woes would have been considerably less with that kind of money.

The block format had been, as she’d feared, a disaster. 

The entire first week of the new format’s launch had been a miserable struggle, and Christine had wondered if the other phone actors were having the same trouble adapting. Her callers would prepay for fifteen minute blocks of time, with the option to extend if  _ necessary _ . Her job was to ensure the  _ necessity _ was taken care of well before the fifteen minutes were up, freeing her line for the next call, and netting the profit of the overlap.

So far, her regulars, for the most part, hadn’t dropped away.

It had been a small triumph when she’d been able to make Billy climax within his fifteen minutes by gasping loudly, acting as though she were about to leave the train car where he masturbated in front of her; had ensured her squeezy juice bottle was filled to the brim when her caller who enjoyed watersports called. 

Bud had called like clockwork on Wednesday for his regular fantasy of violent fellatio. Christine had tried on the small mountain of clothes she’d borrowed from Meg, turning in her mirror to inspect the back of a dress while regularly choking and gasping, wheezing the occasional “Give it to me, daddy!” as Bud masturbated furiously on the other end of the line. When he’d bought an extension, of which she'd been able to recoup half, she considered it a job well done for the first week.

Her only saving grace during that week had been her nightly phone calls with Erik, as they continued to explore each other’s homes. 

_ Good for him for gaming the system _ .

No, it wasn’t his elaborate scheme to scam the callers and the sex line that bothered her at all...it was everything else that Meg had disclosed.

“Meg, you’ve seen my apartment. Why would you think I’d be involved in something like that when I can’t even pay tuition?”

Meg had been silent for several moments, and Christine’s short lived levity withered as quickly as it had bloomed. Why  _ did _ they think she was involved?

“Because almost all of the credit card numbers he’s used for the last three months have been from your callers, Christine. That and the fact that you called this guy from the switchboard all those times. But don’t worry, I’m going to explain that  _ I’m _ the one who gave you his extension and told you to call! The tech guy said that the credit cards might have been retrieved in clusters, so I’m sure there’s a way to explain that too! Like, of course you’re not involved!”

The stone that had settled in her stomach turned over. He was using  _ her _ clients—Bud and Billy and Raoul’s friend!—to steal from. The ramifications of that made her head spin.  _ Why _ ??

“What did he say about it?”she asked in a hushed voice, and gripping the arm of her sofa with whitened knuckles. “What did he say when your mom confronted him?”

“She can’t! He’s gone, Christine. He called the office last week and just up and quit, poof. The address he had on file, the phone number...it was all just random bullshit. If he wasn’t someone my mom had known from before, we probably wouldn’t even know his name!”

The air in her apartment had suddenly become very thin, her lungs unable to fully gasp in enough to inflate.  _ That was impossible _ . Christine had realized it was a good thing that she wasn’t able to breathe, for if she’d had the ability, she surely would have blurted out that Meg was wrong,  _ had _ to be wrong. Erik,  _ her _ Erik, called her every night!

“F-for real? That’s...that’s crazy. Wh-when did he quit?”

“Last week. I called off that day, it was the day after we went to The Bois. I had the  _ worst _ fucking hangover. Robin said he called late in the afternoon and just said he was done, that was it. Didn’t leave forwarding info for his paycheck or anything.”

The day she’d woken with a hangover that wasn’t as bad as her friend’s, thanks to the guardian angel on the phone who’d made sure she’d staved off the headache with water and painkillers. The afternoon she’d tried to take care of him when he’d sounded so tired….The day she’d told him that the service was auditing all of their records after the security breach.

Christine had realized, with hitching breaths, that she’d unwittingly fed Erik the information he’d needed to know it was time to disappear.  _ The security breach _ . She’d told him about the upgrade as well, and what was it that Meg had said? The breach had been so perfectly timed, it was almost as if the perpetrator had known about it? Known that their window of opportunity would be closing?

She had been his accomplice all along. 

“...and if he hadn’t made such a huge fucking deal about the personnel security, like, this upgrade never would never have happened. How stupid can you be?!”

He’d made a stink about the security of the phone actors because of her. Christine swallowed hard, allowing her thoughts to turn Meg’s voice into a droning background buzz. He’d compromised his whole little illegal enterprise for her. 

_ I’d do anything for you, Christine _

“So,” Meg continued, heedlessly, “we’ve been dealing with that bullshit since then, and  _ then _ on top of it, the police have come by like, three times asking for information on some skeezeball that got offed a few weeks ago or something. They said they’d pulled his luds and he was one of our repeat callers, so they want his information to see if there’s any connection. How does calling a sexline get you murdered in a dumpster?”

A tremendous shudder moved through, rippling her spine, and Christine was thankful she’d been sitting as Meg spoke. The shadows through her apartment suddenly seemed to lengthen and shift, her nightmares coalescing into a confusing reality that pressed her into the sofa cushions.

"Whatever, Robin was able to stonewall them, but they came back this morning with a warrant. I’m telling you, Chris. Everything is a fucking mess right now.”

“W-what do you mean, murdered in a dumpster, Meg?  _ Who _ was murdered?”

The creak of the stall door could be heard through the phone, and Christine knew her time was dwindling. She needed Meg to answer before she disconnected.

“Some creepy guy, Robin said she saw it on the news, he was like, a serial rapist or something. Guess it’s not surprising that he was calling a service, right? Look, I gotta go, I need to tell mom about this right now...I’m sorry, Chris. Thank fucking God you’re not wrapped up in this! I’ll call you tomorrow, ‘kay?”

.

.

“You have such a beautiful voice, Erik.” 

Her hand searched for the shape of him in her bed as she murmured softly, seeking the hard plane of him in the sheets. After the odd tension of the evening, after they’d sung together, and had sought release together, she’d been exhausted. When she’d mumbled about having an early shift at the bistro in the morning, he’d insisted on tucking her off to bed, the sharp edge his voice had held all night vanished, leaving behind the buffeting softness she was accustomed to. 

“Why aren’t you singing somewhere instead of...you know.”

As soon the ill-thought words had left her mouth, she’d regretted it. Erik’s voice was unlike anything she’d ever heard, she could tell that from the single duet they’d shared. She’d seen Don Giovanni during one of her last semesters at school, performed by a well regarded regional opera company, and Erik’s voice was far superior to the baritone that had sung the lead during that run. But still, he’d never disclosed to her why he was working for the service, and for some reason, she’d always felt it was too personal to ask.

Erik sighed heavily in her ear, and Christine shifted in the bed, still vainly seeking his warmth.

“I’ve always had freelance gigs,” he’d murmured quietly. “A lack of work was never an issue...I met Renee through one of them, she contacted me about the service a few months later. It was never something I really needed, but it seemed like an...interesting opportunity.”

The pillow muffled her laughter at his words as she turned her head. “That’s an understatement.”

His dark chuckle tickled up her back, and her eyes had slipped shut as she’d snuggled into his side. 

“It’s not always about sex,” he reminded her lightly. “It’s about—”

“I know,” she laughed softly, “it’s about  making a connection...still, that doesn’t explain why you’re not—”

“I don’t have a face for the stage,” he’d interrupted her, a note of tension re-entering his voice, bunching her stomach.

“But Erik, your voice is—”

“Perfect for sound work. A good voice for work in a private studio...you understand, Christine?”

She’d swallowed hard around a lump that had suddenly taken up residence in her throat.  _ Did _ she understand?

“You said that wouldn't matter for my audition, that once they heard me sing, nothing else would matter.”

“Christine,” he’d murmured, and the sadness in his voice twisted her, made her shoulders hunch and her arms instinctively reach out for him, “ _ you _ are beautiful. It doesn't matter because anyone can see that.”

“I’m not. I’m a plain little mouse. I’m not stylish, I’m not sexy, I’m not--”

“You are  _ enchanting _ ,” he’d interrupted her again with a note of finality wavering in that amber tone.

She’d rolled her eyes at his stubbornness, unable to bring herself to continue the conversation. She had pushed him enough for one night.

_ He’d be disappointed if he actually saw you. _

The image of him that she’d created in her mind shuffled and rearranged, sliding his eyes closer together and lengthening his nose, attempting to make him less attractive. It still hadn’t mattered. 

“And you think I care about that,” she’d murmured into the crook of his neck. “You think that matters to me, but it  _ doesn’t _ . I don’t care, Erik. All I want is you.”

Silence settled between them in the wake of her statement, and Christine breathed her frustration slowly out. It had been a strange night, but she'd gotten her first good, long look behind the curtain, and had been loathe to end the evening on a sour note with him.

“Thank you for telling me about your things,” she’d whispered against his skin, nuzzling his warmth. “I know you didn’t want to, but I’m glad you did.”

His breath, warm against her, sounded in her ear, his hand pressed to her hip.

Safe and secure.

“I’d do anything for you, Christine.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Finally got around to glancing at this last chapter to see that it was waaaaay too long to publish. Sorry! Breaking it into two for readability. not sorry

.

.

Through the tinted window, the city crawled by as the fifty five bus struggled through midday traffic. She rarely took the bus, preferred the expediency of the subway most of the time, but after that morning, she needed to be above ground, needed to see the sun.

There had only been a few people on the subway platform when she'd emerged from the staircase, all of them men. Christine wasn't sure when she'd begun to notice the men around her with such alarm, but it seemed that every time she stepped out her door there was one there leering.

Quickly taking stock of her companions on the platform, she'd assessed their threat level, instantly spotting the one who would be trouble.

The young man paced around in agitation, the overly long wallet chain at his hip swinging haphazardly against his JNCOs. The face beneath the sideways hat was pockmarked and yellowed, with a dusting of straw-colored hair bristling around his mouth and chin. Rheumy eyes swept over her, and Christine had frozen.

She'd known that she should have marched up to the platform confidently, should have stood her ground. That's what Meg would have done. She would have kept her head high and her courage in place, catching the train without a second thought. For that matter, that's what Angel would have done, what Amber and Bambi and Simone would have done, but she wasn't any of those alter egos, anymore than she was her confident friend.

She was Christine, and Christine was a mouse.

_You need to stop disregarding your instincts, sweetheart. If it feels wrong, it is wrong_

Erik's voice curled in her mind like a caressing finger of smoke and she wondered if it would haunt her forever, his dark voice and all of the unfulfilled promises therin.

The man's eyes wandered over her once more, slower this time, more appraising, and she shivered. One, two, three steps back and she was jogging quickly back up the concrete steps, fare be damned.

Her instincts told her to get away, and after the situation with Joseph Buquet she had vowed to start listening to them.

She'd been walking home from the bistro, two days after the detectives had visited her apartment, when the connection her mind had been fishing for since she'd first seen the man's face on the news was finally made. The cat call that morning had come as she dodged a puddle of mystery liquid on the sidewalk, and she had turned to scowl at the man. The face leering down from the scaffolding on the side of the building was not the one she realized she'd been anticipating, and she'd gasped in realization.

The truck that had been working on the phone lines near her apartment, the men that had whistled and jeered nearly every time she'd walked past when they'd been there, and the face she glared at every day... _was the man on the television_.

It had been a startling revelation.  _That's why you couldn't place why he was familiar, you never actually talked to him_. The knowledge that he had been there on her block for weeks, shouting lewd remarks as she passed, made her sick.

_Don't be so worried about being nice, that's how you wind up in someone's trunk_

Erik's words were wise, and she knew she'd do well to start following those instincts she so often laughed off, not wanting to cause offense.

As she'd hurried up the steps that morning, away from the subway platform and the young man, listening to her instincts which told her to  _run!,_  she'd been accosted by yet another stranger.

"Slow down there, baby."

The man had stepped around the corner just as she cleared the final step, and they'd collided. His fingers had locked around her upper arms, preventing her from toppling backwards down the staircase, for which she should have been grateful, but when she took a staggering step away from the staircase and his grip had not relaxed, Christine had tightened in fear.

She'd jerked away roughly, throwing off his arms and beelining for the open city beyond.

The shout of " _Crazy fuckin' bitch!"_  had followed her down the sidewalk as she fled, jamming her hands into the pockets of her jacket. She'd managed to catch the bus after several blocks, finding a seat next to an elderly woman near the front as it lurched across midtown. Christine stared with unseeing eyes and attempted to control her spiraling emotions.

The security of the last several months, which she'd clung to so desperately, was gone.

Panic, Christine learned, had a taste. Sharp and metallic, bitter at the back of her mouth, accompanied by a tightness in her chest. She didn't know how to breathe, how to calm herself, and without a deep voiced specter in her ear telling her exactly how to think and feel, and wasn't sure if she'd be able to do either ever again.

_And I miss you_

_Like the deserts miss the rain_

The song had been playing when she'd stepped into the payroll center's office several days ago, had still been playing when she'd fled with her heart thrumming in her throat, it's pulse so thunderous that her vision was blurred by its vibration, the syncopated chorus of the music seeming to have been tailored specifically for her presence. It had been running on a continuous loop in her head since.

_And I miss you_

_Like the deserts miss the rain_

It had been almost two months since he'd vanished from her life.

Two months without his smooth voice in her ear and his strong arms around her at night, two months of crushing emptiness and solitude. Two months since her entire world was upended, two months that had seemed like both an eternity and no time at all. Christine felt as though she was bobbing on a rising tide, struggling to keep her head up, knowing it would only be a matter of time before the dark, churning water swallowed her down.

She had never dreamed vividly prior to those two months. Before, she would occasionally wake with the memory of  _something_  tugging at her mind, fading shadows she could never quite discern. Now she twisted all night long, her tangled thoughts a jumble, would wake gasping with the images of her nightmares permanently seared behind her eyes.

She would see the face of the man who had been killed in the alley, see him leering down at her as she passed. In her dreams, the cat calls were the same as she'd remembered from earlier that summer, but the man's face would be black, his eyes popped and bulging, a piano wire cutting into the bruised flesh of his neck. She would hear the voice of Raoul's friend, the enthusiastic man who would call her line, would hear the sound of his noisy climaxes intermingled with the horrible things that Friday Night Guy would hurl over the phone line into her ear.

Twisted around all of the things that frightened her, that left her whimpering and afraid, were dreamed of him. Dreamed of his arms, of his dark voice curling at her ear, of the weight of his body on top of her own.  _I love you, Christine_. Words she'd only heard uttered in her dreams, but they repeated over and over again, so real she was practically able to touch them, able to taste them on his lips.

_And I miss you_

_Like the deserts miss the rain_

This hollowness inside her, it was the same crushing emptiness she'd felt when her father died, she'd realized, once again completely alone in the world. Her safety net was gone and she was flying unprotected, soaring into a dive. Christine wondered if she would have had time to adjust—if it had been a gradual pulling away, missed calls turning to skipped lessons,  _I have a lot on my plate right now_ s and  _we're better as friend_ s, rather than the ground beneath her being ripped away abruptly, leaving her in this freefall with no end—if she'd be handling his absence better than she was.

_And I miss you_

_Like the deserts miss the rain_

_I love you, Christine_.

She suspected that it was unlikely.

.

* * *

.

He had lied to her once already.

Christine reminded herself of that, after she'd hung up with Meg, disconnecting from the call that had completely upended her world. The room had darkened around her, and the white noise of the city beyond her window provided a discordant hum to her swirling thoughts as she sat staring into the empty space of her apartment.

She reminded herself once more, as she burrowed into the cushions of her sofa, gnawing on the edge of one of her fancy new nails, once she'd logged back into the service for the night, that he'd lied to her once already.

Two nights ago, the night she'd explored his music room, the night they'd sung the duet from Don Giovanni together, after she'd lost herself to the blinding euphoria of his passion, and listened around her thudding heartbeat to the sound of his heavy breath in her ear, gradually slowing as they each came down from their high...

"Is there anything I missed?" she'd whispered, pushing her fingers through his heavy hair as he slumped against her. With her eyes closed, she'd been able to feel the weight of him against her, could imagine the sheen of sweat on his skin, the taste of salt when she kissed his neck.

Mentally retracing her steps as she breathed in the smell of him, Christine had realized there was only spot in the room she'd left unexplored.

"What about the wall where we came in, by the door? Do you have anything there?"

A beat of silence, then a few seconds more before he'd finally answered in a smooth, even voice, the Erik of old, her maestro's voice.

"There's no more instruments, you ferreted them all out. Did I tell you about the dulcimer, princess?"

He had. The dulcimer was on a shelf next to his violin case, and had been salvaged from an abandoned farm building in Appalachia, as he'd already told her. It was broken and battered, and he hadn't yet gotten around to restoring it, although he planned to.

The story had been relayed to her in short, unwilling bursts, when she'd first asked after the contents of the shelf. For him to pivot back to it, away from the entry wall, had made her skin prickle in curiosity.

"What's next to the door?"

Another long, weighted pause followed, along with a tightness in her lungs, and it had taken a moment for Christine to realize she'd been holding her breath.

"A half bath and a utility closet."

Her mind conjured the short wall where she'd mentally entered the room. No more instruments, but two more doors...a bathroom and a closet.

He was lying.

She didn't know why her brain had immediately supplied her with the thought, but as soon as it entered her mind, she was certain it was true.  _Don't be so stupid! He hasn't liked telling you about anything all night, why would he lie now?_  She hadn't had an answer for herself, knowing the voice in her head wasn't wrong.

And yet...he was lying, or at the very least, omitting.

"I have to work early in the morning, " she'd murmured that night, suddenly feeling dead on her feet, and not wanting to question  _why_  she was so certain he was lying to her, or why. "What are we doing tomorrow? You've practically seen my whole apartment at this point."

She'd settled into her bed as she spoke, kicking off the clothes she wore in a heap, too tired to put them in the hamper. Her eyelids had been heavy, the weight of his aggravation and what they'd shared and all she'd learned leaving her feeling thick and sleepy, as though she'd been drugged by the uncomfortable glimpse of him she'd received through the room.

"We'll see...but sometime this week I want to hear your entire run through." His voice had been soft and comforting,  _her_  Erik once more, pulling her into his arms to keep her safe. "Everything straight through, the way it'll be in your audition."

Her audition was the following week, a signal that the oddest summer of her life was nearing its close. After that, it would be a matter of weeks before the new semester began, when she was meant to  _put all of this behind her_.

It was then, as she curled into his side, that she'd asked after his voice, when she'd challenged his assumptions that she would care if he wasn't handsome.

_You understand, Christine?_

She hadn't obviously, she still didn't understand anything, she thought to herself miserably from the corner of her sofa.

Erik called her every night, the same way he'd always had, it didn't make sense for Meg to say he was  _gone_. She didn't understand why he thought she was so superficial, why he'd involved her clients in his little scheme, and why the thought of him being a criminal bothered her so little.

He would be calling her soon, what was she supposed to do, what was she supposed to say?!

As she pressed herself into the striped upholstery, Christine attempted to center her breath, to think of something calm and soothing...an endless summer sky, filled with winking stars, she thought, their conversation from the previous night came back to her: the plush cocoon of his voice wrapped around her snugly, as he told her about the stars as she stretched in her bed.

"How did you find the old barn?" she'd whispered.

The summer was in the thick of its balmy period, everything seemingly stuck under a layer of sweaty condensation, sickly warm to the touch. She was afraid to sleep with her windows open, since his little demonstration of how the sounds around her so clearly gave clue to her surroundings, and her airless bedroom had been stifling at night, her little fan doing little more than push around the stagnant heat.

Christine couldn't bare not having something over her when she slept, regardless of the temperature. The thought of hands—both the clawed hands of nightmare creatures and the meaty, sweaty hands of strangers touching her as she swayed to a pulsing, circular rhythm—wandering over her if she slept uncovered was too terrifying to abide.

Her sheet had been pulling double duty as her blanket for the past few weeks, but Erik's skin, she was certain, would be cool...firm and cool and comfortable as she rested against him at night, despite the fact that she often searched for his heat in her bed during their conversations.

Last night had been one such night, the cool press of his skin and his heady, masculine scent keeping her comfortable as she traced the line of his long jaw with an errant fingertip. After the tense exploration of his music room the night before, she'd made a point to keep their call easy and light, telling him about the classes she would need to take this semester, and where and when her audition would be. It wasn't until she'd settled into her bed, pressing against the cool length of him that she'd asked about the barn.

"The barn with the dulcimer, Erik? How did you find it? I'm not even sure I know where Appalachia is."

His laugh had been a low rumble against her, a distant summer storm approaching to sweep her up in its deluge.

Christine closed her eyes to the rhythmic cadence of his voice as he outlined the width and breadth of the mountains: the Catskills to the Poconos; from the Allegheny Plateau to the peaks of the Blue Ridge, scenery and states she had only read about in books.

In her mind's eye, she could see the crumbling old barn he described, half hidden in the hills of Tennessee, caving in, surrounded by tall grass.

"There's so much sky, Christine. You can actually see the stars," he murmured, telling her about he'd traveled up from the south eastern coast into the heart of Appalachia.

The story fell from his lips without needing to be pried, as everything had been the night before in his music room, and she wondered now, looking back with the advantage of hindsight from her sofa, if he'd felt the clock running out and had chosen not to spend what might have been their final conversation being cross with her.

Christine wondered, even as she sat there in her dark apartment, if the police or the FBI or whoever it was that investigated credit card fraud were closing in on him, wherever he was.

"You can see the stars here," she'd argued with a smile, arching against that low rumble of his laugh once more, the storm growing ever closer.

"You think that, but...you have no idea."

The picture he painted for her: one of a wide open field, pitch black beneath an endless, unencumbered sky alight with the pinpricks of a million stars, had held her spellbound. She'd never seen the sky from any view that wasn't partially obstructed by skyscrapers and city smog, she'd never been anywhere outside of the city, not really, and the realization that she'd never  _actually_  experienced the night sky left her dumbstruck with disappointment.

"It's a big world, baby," he'd whispered when she'd given voice to her thoughts. "You'll see more of it someday, I know you will."

She didn't care if he was a criminal. She didn't care if she'd lied to her friend, would lie again, if needed; didn't care if he'd stolen money, didn't care about anything else he might have done.

She only cared about him, for he was the only one who cared about her.

She realized eventually that the room had darkened fully as she pressed into the corner of her sofa after Meg's call, and that she'd let the majority of the night slide by. She'd missed a full night of calls, had almost certainly missed Bud's weekly Friday call.

 _Why should you care_?

"I don't," she answered aloud to herself. The calls were prepaid now, and she didn't need to work half as hard.  _You'll be 'putting this all behind you soon', so why does it matter?_

Logging back into the system, she took several calls in a row as she stared blankly at the issue of Cosmo she'd picked up with her groceries, barely putting forth any effort with the men on the other end of the line, inspired by Erik's deceitful mastery of the system. When the fifth caller had prepaid for thirty minutes, like Raoul's friend, and she took advantage of the time to paint her toenails.

Friday Night Guy never called.

She'd spent months dreading the man's calls, yet now Christine found herself holding her breath, hoping against hope that his hateful voice would be the one to sound in her ears, every time the phone had rung. She'd kept her cordless on the bathroom sink, just outside the shower, so that she'd be able to reach out and answer it if any calls came through, but after that last longer call, the phone had remained silent.

It was too great a coincidence for the man to whom Meg had referred to  _not_  be Joseph Buquet, the man who'd been strangled to death just beyond her window. Two weeks since the murder, two weeks since Friday Night Guy stopped calling...the ramifications of that made her sick, the thought that Friday Night Guy had been there. There! Right outside her door!

_You've made it too easy, sweetheart_

_This alter noyef in the dumpster..._ The man had been a customer of the service, called regularly enough that the police felt it was an avenue worth exploring... _good people? Don't wind up in murdered in alleys._ The man had been killed, had been strangled to death just outside her apartment, and it twisted her stomach that she still was unable to place why he'd looked so familiar to her... _It's a coincidence_. It  _has_  to be a coincidence...and if it wasn't?

She wasn't sure if she cared about that either.

She was tired, Christine thought as she methodically double checked her windows and doors, unable to tolerate the looming shadows of her living room for another hour. She was tired of being afraid, tired of feeling dirty, tired of going to bed alone.

Like a magical summons, as soon as the thought crossed her mind, the phone rang.

"Hi, sweetheart."

His voice was soft and warm, familiar and comforting and she  _didn't care!_

A bubble of emotion threatened to push its way to the surface at the sound of his voice, and it was all she could not to break down into noisy sobs right then and there. She wanted to tell him about Meg's call that evening, about what she'd said that he'd done, that he needed to be aware, be ready for the inevitable knock on his door, be ready to run! Wanted to let him know she didn't care about what he'd done, his racket with the service and the stolen credit cards, didn't care about any of it!

_I don't care, Erik. All I want is you._

She'd meant the words she told him. She didn't care about what he looked like, didn't care about any of the things he'd done. She only wanted him.

"What do you want to do tonight?" she murmured instead into his neck, curling against the shape of him in her bed. His voice in her ear was the only thing she had to cling to in this world, the only thing that made her feel safe since her father had died, the only person in the entire miserable city who thought about her, was concerned for her. He could ask her to do anything, could ask the most vile, degrading things of her, and she'd comply without hesitation.

She didn't care.

"I just want to hold you tonight."

The emptiness of her apartment didn't exist with his breath in her ear, the knowledge that he was there, holding her close. " _Christine_ …" Her name, softly whispered into the air between them, a curl of smoke wrapping around her.

When she began to cry softly against the heavy, velvet press of him, he didn't stop her, didn't murmur any false platitudes or empty promises. A goodbye was imminent, she could feel it hanging over them: a heavy, suffocating weight.

 _We're not going to think about that tonight,_  she berated herself, trying to force her tears into submission. She didn't want to think about saying goodbye to him, didn't want to think about what Meg had told her or about the real possibility of the police knocking on her door, didn't want to think about the shape of her world without his presence in it.

Tonight she didn't want to do anything but lie in his arms: the only place where she felt safe, where she felt unafraid; the only place where she knew everything would turn out fine and nothing would ever happen to her.

Safe and secure.

.

.

"You need to release your jaw," he instructed sharply, a moment after the piano had abruptly stopped playing on the other end of the line. "You're clenching."

Christine exhaled through her nose, feeling like a petulant child for the offense she took at his words. He was right, she  _was_  clenching her jaw, but her tension was a direct result of the last twenty-four hours.

He had been morose from the moment she picked up the phone, which had quickly translated into an aggravated demand for perfection from her, which was  _not_  helping her stress level.

"Erik, I thought you wanted to hear the run through from beginning to end?" she questioned tightly.

He'd called late that morning to work through her entire audition repertoire, as he'd requested the previous night before disconnecting. He'd wanted to hear each piece they'd selected from beginning to end, as she would perform them in her actual audition; wanted her to be calm and confident, and hadn't wanted to wait until she returned from her afternoon shift at the bistro.

Christine had been able to shove his melancholy mood away as she prepared herself to sing, but this was the second time he'd stopped her.

"I do want to hear it straight through, but I expect to hear it done properly."

The terseness of his voice made her jump, and Christine closed her eyes, breathing in slowly.  _He pushes because he knows you can do it, because he believes in you, stop being such a baby._  She didn't want to spend their time together sniping at each other. Exhaling, she centered her breath and adjusted her posture. Opening her eyes, she signaled that she was ready to begin again. This time she was ready: her jaw was loose, her shoulders lowered, her breath supported.

Christine focused on pouring herself into the pieces they'd selected together, willing him to  _hear_  her, to understand.

_Leise flehen meine Lieder_

_Durch die Nacht zu Dir;_

With her voice she painted for him the picture of the silvery, moonlit grove, where she waited for him, calling to him with her song.

_Liebchen, komm' zu mir!_

The German lied was followed by her French art song, a debussy piece...two arias in Italian that she could perform in her sleep, and then the English piece. Erik had chosen a discordant aria from a brand new opera, and although it had sat poorly in her ear for the first several weeks they'd rehearsed it, the wistfulness of the refrain brought tears to her eyes now.

_Once there was a golden bird,_

_A bird who lived in a silver cage._

She could not simply walk away from this, from  _them_. He had to know that, had to understand the way she felt. She didn't care about anything he'd done.

_You taught me that acceptance_

_is the only road to freedom,_

_and forgiveness sets our spirit free to fly._

He had been quiet when the last notes of Marie Antoinette's act two aria faded away, and her stomach had clenched in fear that she'd somehow disappointed him again.

"W-was it too...d-did I-"

"You're a marvel, Christine," he interrupted her stammering in a low voice, heavy with an emotion she was unable to name, that made her chest heave and tighten with longing all the same. "Your voice is the most beautiful sound I'll ever hear, as long as I live...thank you, my dear, for giving me the gift of experiencing you these last few months."

Tears flooded her eyes at his words, at the softness of his voice. The tension of the previous evening and all that she'd been told still hung heavily over her, and she was unprepared for his tender sentiment.

Erik praised her often, but it was always couched in effective, needed criticisms and corrections. Christine couldn't help but think once more that his words had the flavor of a farewell, the knife he'd slipped between her ribs with his  _soon you'll be putting this all behind you_  comment twisting a bit deeper every day at the thought of the time spent singing for him,  _being_  with him coming to an end.

Moments like this, when she wasn't able to shove her awareness of their situation behind an optimistic wall of naiveté, bled her dry.

He'd wanted to take her back to her bedroom afterwards, describing how slight her weight was in his arms as he scooped her up, the soft press of her blonde curls against his lips as he gently laid her on top of the mussed sheets.

" _Christine, Christine,"_ whispered over and over against her lips, her throat, the curve of her breasts. With her eyes closed, she was able to feel the silky glide of his heavy, dark hair against her fingertips as she pressed through to his scalp, felt his solid weight settle over her, pushing between her knees. In her mind it was his narrow hips she wrapped her legs around, his back that she clung to, and not the pillow from her bed.

His deep baritone was a steady, rhythmic press against her; an enveloping, resinous cloud and she was suspended in its center as he paid reverence to her body with lips and teeth and tongue, the black velvet crush of him smothering her until she cried out on a sob, the ecstasy of being with him and the agony of  _knowing_  she was losing him turning her pleasure into something painful that left her hollow with longing. She wanted to push him away and run from this as much as she wanted to score her nails down his long back until he bled, until she was covered in him, until she knew he was real, more real than the slickness now coating her fingers.

"You'll still call me tonight?" she asked, wincing at the frantic neediness in her voice, just before they said goodbye for the afternoon. She felt desperate for his reassurance, for the guarantee that his arms would be there when she went to bed, every moment suddenly feeling too precious to waste. "Erik? You'll call me later?"

"Of course I will, sweetheart. I have some work to catch up on this evening, but I'll call you before you go to bed, okay? All you need to do next week is sound as perfect as you did today, Christine. I don't want you to stress over it anymore, you're more than ready...I'm sorry for snapping at you. I...have a good day, angel. I'll call you before bed."

She hated the pervasive feeling of dark clouds above them, the certainty that a goodbye seemed imminent, just when their relationship had seemed to ascend to a new level of intimacy.  _Why did Meg have to tell you anything?_  As soon as the thought appeared, she shook it away, as she returned the phone to its cradle.

 _Everything is going to be fine,_ she told herself sternly, rising from where she'd perched on the edge of her sofa, wiping away the tears that had dripped down her face as he spoke _. People steal all the time, the police probably don't want to be bothered if none of the clients are coming forward, you know Meg is a drama queen. You're going to nail your audition, and you'll actually get together with him to celebrate._

Christine focused on the words of her confident inner voice as she moved to her kitchen. A peanut butter Kudos bar and a bottle of cherry Clearly Canadian were probably the unhealthiest lunch ever, and she knew that Erik would have pitched a fit over the sugary drink, but she wanted something comforting before she left for her mid-shift at the bistro.

 _Everything is fine, you're overreacting. He'll call you tonight, and it'll be fine_.

.

.

"Miss Daaé, where were you the night of Tuesday, July-"

The sharp creaking of a door being opened across the hall made her look up sharply as the detective before her cut off. Mrs. Blumenthal's wide eyes met hers, and Christine forced a smile onto her face.

"Hi, Mrs. Blumenthal," she chirped falsely, attempting to not let the panic she was feeling seep into her voice.

The officers had knocked on her door only minutes after she returned home from her shift at the bistro. The temperature outside was hovering in the high eighties that day, making the interior of her small apartment feel like an oven, despite it already being late afternoon.

She had just changed into a pair of her small soccer shorts and a strappy cami, was about to settle at her table to dial into the service when the sharp rapping on the thin wood of her door made her jump. Every terrifying thought she'd had in the past several months coalesced into mind-numbing panic, and Christine had flattened herself against the wall of her kitchen for several endless moments before she was able to steel herself to approach the door warily. Struggling to see through the peephole without standing in front of the door, she'd made a conscious effort to prevent whomever was on the other side from seeing the shadow of her feet.

The sight of the two men, badges around their necks, had made her heart leap up into her throat, and she'd watched, frozen, as the taller one raised his hand to knock again. The sound against her door was lost to the blood rushing in her ears, the swirling panic that gripped her.

_They're here to question you about Erik, about your client's credit cards They know you fed him information, know you're involved._

_Stop!_  she'd told herself sternly.  _They don't know anything. You called his extension because that's what Meg told you to do._  A deep breath to steady herself, and then she was reaching for the door...

...But the detectives hadn't asked about Erik, hadn't asked anything about whether she knew him or if she knew anything about his scheme with the stolen credit cards. When the nature of their visit was made clear to her, Christine hadn't known whether she'd wanted to laugh in relief or cry in terror.

"Christine, meydl, is everything alright?" Mrs. Blumenthal asked in a hushed voice, eyes sweeping over the officers in the doorway.

"There was a disturbance up the block recently, ma'am," the older of the two men answered before Christine could take a breath. "We're doing some follow-up questions with some people who live in the area who might aid in our investigation."

"A disturbance, is that what you're calling it these days?" the older woman harrumphed. "You ought to talk to Ida Griegs, you know, she lives in that building."

The name was duly recorded as the officer thanked Mrs. Blumenthal for her assistance, and Christine held open her apartment door. The nature of the conversation she was about to undertake, she decided, was not one to which her neighbors needed to be privy.

"I was out with a friend the whole day," she answered once the door had closed and she'd perched on the arm of her sofa as the detectives loomed over her. "My friend Meg Giry. She came to the restaurant where I work, waited until my shift was done and we had lunch. Then we went back to get our nails done and went shopping. We ate dinner at her apartment, and went to a club in the financial district, The Bois. I didn't get home until late."

"Your friend is also from the phone line service?"

She swallowed hard, nodding her agreement. "Yes, her mother is the owner."

"How long have you been in this line of work, Ms. Daae?"

"Um, since April," she murmured, feeling her neck flame. As she spoke, she pulled on a cardigan, wrapping it around her protectively. The older detective was barely lifting his head from his notes, but Christine couldn't help feel that the younger of the two men watched her derisively, and she didn't like feeling so exposed.

"As a phone sex operator."

The younger man's words were sharp and his eyes flashed in judgement, and the heat spread to her cheeks.

 _It's just a job, Christine. You're surviving, that's all it is._ Erik's words replayed in her mind, and she felt her hackles raise at this man's tone.

"A phone actress," she gritted out.

"And how long have you been working for this particular company?"

The younger one gave an almost imperceptible snort, and Christine saw red. "Yes, a company. A company where I pay taxes, taxes that go towards city services like police and fire, so you're welcome. This city  _killed_  my father, but not before it made him so sick that it drained our savings dry. This may shock you officer, but my restaurant job doesn't exactly pay the bills."

The words were out before she could bite them back, before she could think better. She was Christine and Christine was a mouse; she had no idea where the sharp anger had come from, wasn't sure if it was Angel's false bravado or the residual effect of having been unwittingly involved with a criminal for the last several months, but she found that, like so many other things she'd discovered in the past seventy two hours, she didn't care.

The older man stepped around the younger to resume, and she swallowed hard, willing herself to calm down as she answered his questions. Yes, she had a regular caller who'd been calling her like clockwork on Friday nights since the beginning of the summer; yes, she could recognize the man's voice if they played a recording for her. When the nature of the calls were questioned, she'd been unable to prevent the tears that fell or the sob that seemed to rip from her throat like a wild animal, furiously fleeing captivity.

"He was h-horrible," she wheezed, wrapping her arms around the pillow from her sofa, the same pillow that had been Erik in her mind so many times. "The things he said he was g-going to d-do to me…he said he was going to hurt me."

The younger man's cockiness had fled in the face of her tears. Christine noticed, as she peered up, the way he uncomfortably paced the length of her small living room as she accepted a tissue from the older detective. "He said horrible things, every week. I tried reporting him, but the switchboard operators said he was a paying customer, so...so I tried not to let it get to me."

The detective pursed his lips at that, making a note with a disgusted head shake. No, she had no way of knowing who the man was, he'd never given her any personal information; No, the man hadn't called in the last two weeks; No, she didn't know anything about the disturbance up the block, other than what she was told by the yentas downstairs at the Sokoloff's counter.

No, she had no reason to believe that the man had come to his demise, garroted and left in a dumpster, because of her.

"It-it's connected?" she asked, sniffling pathetically. "But how? How could he have been right there? Was he someone that lived in the neighborhood?" It seemed too great a coincidence, even as she uttered the words, had seemed too great all along. "He-he got into the system, didn't he. He knew who I was."

She didn't phrase it as a question, and from the look the men exchanged, she didn't need to.

She'd thought she'd been numb the previous night when Meg had called her, when she'd learned about Erik and his scheme, but the hour following the detective's departure gave new meaning to the empty, hollow emotion that left her frozen on her sofa once more.

"We'll be in touch if there's anything else we need from you, Ms. Daae...you were very lucky. Unfortunately for him, Mr. Buquet was not."

"I guess I have a guardian angel out there," she choked out in the doorway, suddenly feeling nauseous.

A guardian angel...an angel of music. Christine wondered if they were one and the same.

_I don't care._

She wasn't entirely certain if the detectives had believed her, wasn't sure if the investigation into the stolen credit cards would eventually collide with the investigation into the murdered man in the dumpster... _it doesn't matter if it does_ , she reminded herself.  _You're in the clear, you only called him because Meg gave you his extension. You haven't dialed that number since…_

Christine blinked.

She'd been telling herself since her call with Meg that she hadn't dialed Erik's extension in many weeks, not since Erik had taken it upon himself to start calling her himself...but that wasn't accurate, she realized, dread washing over her in an icy wave.

_You called him the night you were drunk, the night you went to the club with Meg._

The night a man was murdered in the alley outside of her apartment.

.

.

She needed to tell him everything.

Christine paced the length of her small apartment repeating the words to herself over and over. She needed to tell Erik everything she knew, everything she'd been told, everything she'd said...or else she needed to call the number on the card the detective had given her, and tell  _him_  all that she knew.

She'd picked up the receiver after the detectives had left, had dialed the switchboard number from memory, her fingers tapping out his extension on their own volition. When the call was immediately routed back to the switchboard and answered by one of the operators, she'd hung up, thrusting the phone away as if she'd been burned.

She didn't understand.

She didn't understand how he'd been calling her, didn't understand how he could have left the service almost two weeks ago, yet had still been calling her every night, staying on the phone with her for hours.  _You'll just have to wait for him to call tonight. You need to tell him everything...and he needs to be honest with you._

She'd been dialed into the service for about thirty minutes, was putting away the silverware that had been accumulating in her drainer when the phone rang.

"Is this Honey?" a sharp voice asked after she'd purred her hello, and Christine froze. She'd chosen the name for her bio once she'd retired Angel, not wanting to callers to greet her with the same name by which Erik had first know her. The woman's voice was familiar, and Christine realized after a moment that it was the same person who'd fielded her complaint about Friday Night Guy, the same woman she'd met in the office with Meg, before they'd gone to have their nails done. Robin, the front office manager.

"This is she." Her voice was little more than a reedy whisper, and she cleared her throat, pushing her panic down. "Yes, this is Honey."

Much like in her conversation with the detectives, the questions she anticipated being asked never came. She was never questioned about her calls to Erik, was not questioned about his scheme or her clients or the payroll mistakes that had been made in her favor.

"Miss, do you recall the code of conduct agreement you signed at the time of your employment?" Christine stammered out a confused yes as the woman on the other end of the line began to rattle off the contents of said agreement. "According to our records, you prematurely terminated a customer call on the evening of May 20th, do you recall this?"

Chrisitne blinked.  _Is she fucking serious?_  "I-I do, but—"

"Then you know this is expressly against our service's policy. In accordance, your position with the Étoile Agency has been terminated, effective immediately. Your final pay will be issued on the standard paycycle. I wish you luck in your future endeavors."

She'd barely had time to draw breath before the dial tone buzzed in her ear. Christine sat in stunned silence, mouth hanging open. The phone pressed to her ear, the dial tone a muffled white noise, providing a backdrop to her shock until discordant jar of the off-the-hook noise startled her back to lucidity.

She'd just been fired.  _Fired_! The laughter that burbled out of her was high and manic and uncontrolled.  _You were just fired for hanging up on a dead man!_ Her fingers curled around the sofa arm, gripping the upholstery for support as she doubled over. Of all the things she could have been fired for! Her switchboard calls to Erik, her involvement, however oblivious, in his fraudulent scheme, not reporting the payroll discrepancies...hanging up on Joseph fucking Buquet, weeks and weeks ago, had somehow been her undoing.

Christine laughed until her sides ached, the shadows of her apartment somehow seeming less ominous now that her sex work days were abruptly at an end.  _He's going to get a kick out of this, he's going to be thrilled when you tell him toni—_

The levity that had gripped her dissipated in a great  _woosh_ , along with the air in her lungs. The arms she wrapped around herself were no longer there to hold her sides in laughter, but to prod herself into drawing a breath before she blacked out.

How was he to call her now?

Christine sat in the corner of her sofa, knees drawn up to her chin and her arms wrapped around her as night fell around her. She'd begun to cry somewhere around one a.m. and wasn't able to stop. She'd never sleep again, she vowed, as her shoulders shook with the force of her sobs. She wouldn't budge from this spot, lest she miss him, lest she was forced to confront her empty bed, this empty room, her empty life.

Beside her, the phone remained silent.


End file.
